Paging Dr Death
by Suicidal Mickey Mouse
Summary: After ten years apart, can one case reunite the brothers with Nancy to reform the unstoppable trio?
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the characters associated with them, or any pop culture references I may choose to include.

Author's notes: Nothing yet. It's all self explanatory so far.

* * *

Prologue

"Nancy, come away from the window." Ned spoke quietly, looking at his longtime girlfriend, Nancy Drew. She had one hand holding back the plain white curtain, moonlight creating a shine on her reddish-blond hair. It came down to her shoulders like it always had; Nancy never changed. "Nancy, I need to talk to you, I'd like you to be facing me when I did it."

Nancy turned around, her hand falling from the curtain. "Ned, this isn't the time."

His face briefly fell. "Nancy, it hasn't been the time since the accident. Why can't it be the time now?"

"Because I want to talk to you, and I think mine's more important." She briefly smiled. "I got my college acceptance letters."

"And somehow you always know what I want to talk about."

"Well, I am the detective in this relationship."

Ned slipped his arms around Nancy while he smiled. "And what did old Emerson have to say about you?"

"I got in." Nancy slipped away from his arms slowly, hoping that he wouldn't notice. "They offered me a full scholarship."

"That's great!" Ned seemed ecstatic. "Now you can come to school with me and we can get an apartment off campus, and finally live together." He stopped his grin when he didn't see Nancy's. "What's wrong?"

"Ned…I'm not going to Emerson."

"What? Why not? Nancy we planned this all out. The only thing we were waiting on was your acceptance letter."

"We planned this out before the accident, Ned. I don't want to become a reporter or anything like that anymore. I need to change things. My life isn't going to last forever, especially if I keep up this lifestyle. I want to settle down; I want to have a life other than mysteries. I don't need everyone in my life worrying about me." Nancy tried explaining.

Ned shook his head. "Emerson has other programs. Nancy, we wanted this. You just need to find something new to study."

"I know." She nodded. "I just can't do it there. I'm sorry Ned." There was a short pause. " I think that we should break up."

"Nancy, what's going on? I don't understand. Why are you doing this? We're doing great." Ned protested despondently.

Nancy turned away. "Long distance relationships don't work." She sighed moving back to the window and pulling back the curtain, looking at the view of her street once more. She could hear Ned quietly objecting in the background. "Ned, I got into Oxford. Full scholarship." She made an even briefer pause than before. "Now you know as well as I do that if I were to go we wouldn't make it. Sometimes we barely do now." Now she turned back. "I'm going to go, Ned. And I think that the only logical thing to do with us is to break up."

For a moment Ned didn't say anything. It felt like his world was being destroyed. Then it occurred to him that there was one other option. "We could get married."

"And what? Just be husband and wife on opposite continents? Ned be reasonable." Nancy's blue eyes were showing sympathy; but it didn't seem to be what he needed.

"I am. I could do my senior year in the Emerson exchange program. It's not too late to register. We could get married and then live together over there and--"

"Ned," Nancy cut him off softly. " This is something that I want to do on my own. I've always had someone holding my hand every step of the way in my life. I need to try something new, without help. I know that this isn't what you want for us, but it makes sense to me. And I just need to do something right now that makes sense. I'm really sorry."

It took Ned a minute to respond; it was only after he realized how serious she was that he spoke. "It's alright. If you want this, then it's OK. Just make sure you write once in a while, OK? I still want to be your friend."

Nancy gave him a bittersweet smile. "I look forward to that."


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the characters associated with them, or any pop culture references I may choose to include.

Author's notes: Nothing yet. It's all self explanatory so far.

_Italics are thoughts.

* * *

_

Chapter One

**Ten Years Later**

The emergency room of Community Care General Hospital was bustling as usual when the shifts changed on an early September morning. Sometimes the crowd in the waiting room never seemed to die down, mostly because it somehow ended up being the only hospital in the city of Port Winston; the city that was about the size of Portland, Maine, but with twice the population.

"Morning Dr. Drew." A blond nurse behind the admissions counter greeted.

"It's Nancy." Nancy Drew admonished. "Margie, how many more times am I going to have to tell you that?"

"Probably a lot." Margie admitted. "Here are your first cases. There's a high fever in one, and some cuts and bruises in two."

"Thanks Margie." Nancy picked up the two charts and briefly walked into the locker room, trading off her black leather jacket for her white medical jacket, occasionally trading greetings with her coworkers. "Morning Tom." She smiled at the doctor that was leaning against the wall, rubbing a face that was in need of a shave. "Late night again?"

"Just some fun with my friends." Tom answered quickly. "Something you know little about." He stood straight from the wall and looked around briefly. "Julie's supposed to be bringing me some aspirin."

"She's at the front desk. A bit to public for your tastes isn't it?"

Tom laughed, starting to walk away, but turned back. "True. However it's just so easy to move to an empty room." He paused. "Although I don't have my eye on Julie."

"Just the girl next to her right?"

"Something like that." Tom confirmed.

Nancy turned to enter one of the exam rooms. "Well whoever your conquest is remember that there are children out there."

"And they're all your responsibility." Tom finished the conversation as Nancy opened the door and entered the room.

Inside sitting on a bed was a young girl with thin, straw blond hair, green eyes, and a light sheen of sweat covering her face. She had already been changed into a hospital gown, and seemed to be waiting patiently, talking to a woman with a concerned look on her face that was brushing the young girl's hair away from her face. Quickly Nancy glanced down at the chart and started reading.

'_Patient's name is Camilla Hardy.' Hardy? It couldn't be the same._ Nancy shook her head briefly, clearing away thoughts of the past. _'Camilla is four and a half years old, and is presenting with stomach pain and a fever of one oh four._ "Good morning Camilla." She spoke with a bright smile as she walked to the bed. "My name is Dr. Drew." She pulled a rolling stool over and sat down on it and then looked more over her chart quickly, rolling over her vitals. "But you can call me Nancy. How are you feeling today?"

The girl simply shook her head a little. "Not so good huh?" Now the girl nodded. "Well we'll be changing that."

"You're probably going to have a hard time getting her to talk. Camilla's really shy." The woman spoke.

Nancy looked to her. She was pushing towards close to twenty with short brown hair and green eyes. "Are you her mother?"

"No, no." The woman shook her head. "I'm her nanny."

"Have her parents been called yet?"

"No…I've been waiting with Camilla." The nanny denied.

Nancy then looked to a phone. "Well why don't you do that now? I'm going to start my preliminary exam."

"Um…OK. What do I say? Should I tell him it's serious, or not to worry? This is my first real job, I really don't want to lose it, this isn't my fault is it?"

"I can assure you Ms…."

"It's Katie."

"I can assure you Katie that Camilla is just sick, and you can't prevent that. Why don't you just call the family and tell them that she has a high fever, so you brought her here to be safe?" Nancy confirmed. "The phone's right there. Press 1 for an outside line." Nancy then turned back to Camilla. "OK then Camilla, you said that your tummy doesn't feel good? Can you show me where?" Camilla didn't nod or point. "I want you to lie down and I'm going to poke around your stomach and you can tell me when it hurts OK?"

* * *

Frank Hardy glanced at the scene around him. 10:00 in the morning and he was already talking with the cops. He never really wanted to get involved with chasing down muggers all the time, but it just seemed to happen; the goodness in his heart wouldn't allow him to ignore it.

His brother Joe stood next to him, a laugh echoing in his face. "Tell me again what happened? Because if I recall correctly we came here to investigate something about threats to the life of some bigwig at a hospital, not a small time mugging."

"I just need to give my statement about what happened up until the guy got away. Then we'll need to get over to that place where we're meeting the client." Frank shook his head.

"I still can't believe you let him get away."

"I didn't let him get away." Frank sighed, removing the ice pack from his face, revealing an ugly bruise with a cut near his eyebrow. "He threw the lid of a trash can at my head. There's a distinct difference."

Joe was about to speak again when his cell phone rang. Instead he held up a finger and turned away. "Hello…Katie….Katie what's wrong….what…I'll be right there." He quickly turned back. He was no longer smiling, and his face had gone pale. "That was Katie. Cami's in the hospital."

"What?" Frank too started frowning. "What's wrong?"

Joe ran a hand through his hair. "She says it's just a stomachache, and a high fever. She's at Community Care. The emergency room."

"Go now. See what's going on. She needs you. I'll stay here and meet with our client. I'm sure he'll be understanding. Call me when you know how she is OK?"

* * *

Joe jogged into the emergency room, not stopping until he reached the admissions desk. "Excuse me, I was told that my daughter was brought here."

"Name?" A tired nurse requested.

"Joe Hardy." He answered quickly, not thinking.

The nurse did a double take. "You named your daughter Joe?"

"No. No." He shook his head. "Her name's Camilla Hardy. Where is she? Is she all right?"

"Your daughter is on her way up to surgery now. I'm sure that Doctor Drew will be right…There she is now." The nurse pointed and Joe turned to see a female doctor with a friendly face walking up. She had shoulder length auburn colored hair, and bright blue eyes. If he didn't know any better than he would have said it was Nancy Drew, but it couldn't have been. "Dr. Drew, this is Camilla Hardy's father."

The doctor briefly paused in her walk before smiling. "So it is you. Joe Hardy. I wasn't sure when I saw the name but--"

"How is she?" Joe cut off his longtime friend, even though his mind didn't register that it was her. Concern for his daughter pulled rank. "I mean what's wrong? Why does she need surgery?"

"Relax." Nancy spoke quickly, but in a calming tone. "Camilla's going to be just fine. All it is, is acute appendicitis. She's going upstairs to have it removed right now and she'll be perfectly fine. You'll be able to see her in a few hours."

Weight lifted off of Joe's shoulders and a sigh escaped his lips. "Thank god." It was then that he pulled a double take. "Wait…Nancy? Since when are you a doctor?"

"I'll explain later. Let me take you up to where you can wait for Camilla OK? This is a long story, and it'll have to wait until my shift's over." Nancy gave him a brief hug.

"OK." Joe complied quickly, still in a tiny bit of haze and easily agreeing to things. "Where's Katie?"

Nancy began leading him into an elevator. "She's already upstairs waiting." Nancy pressed the button and they began going up. "What about her mother? Has she been notified?"

"No…" Joe once again became somber. "Camilla's mother died right before she was born."

"Oh Joe. I'm sorry. We haven't talked in so long…I didn't know." Nancy looked down.

Joe shook his head. "It's all right." He paused. "She was in labor. We were on our way to the hospital when there was a car accident. She was killed, but the doctor's were able to save Camilla with an emergency cesarean."

"Then she's most definitely got luck on her side." Nancy gave a small smile, and then changed the subject. "So what's your brother up to?"

* * *

Frank Hardy sat at the café table with an apologetic smile on his face. "I'm sorry that I'm late." He apologized quickly. "I had to give a statement with the police about a mugger. But you don't need to know about that." He offered a hand. "Frank Hardy."

"Dr. George Millet." The balding man in front of him shook his hand with a smile. "It's quite all right about the delay. You've simply been very helpful in providing me with a longer break."

"I'm glad to have been of service then." Frank glanced around briefly. "Now when you contacted us you mentioned threats. Could you be a little more specific?"

Dr. Millet sighed. "Right down to business I see." He paused. "It was a few messages on my voice mail. They were talking about how I would pay for my past mistakes. It was basically the same message over and over."

Frank nodded, taking it in, even though he was recording the conversation, per his own policy. "Can you remember the exact words?"

"Not exactly." Dr. Millet shook his head. "I'm not really that concerned about the whole thing. It's my wife who made me call you. She has a friend who your family helped out and ever since has decided that if anything happens your word will be the gospel."

"That's probably a little too kind." Frank almost blushed. "You say the threats said you would pay for past mistakes?"

"That's about all they said." Dr. Millet confirmed. "I'm almost positive that it's nothing."

"Why don't you let us decide that?" Frank suggested quickly, but good-naturedly. "No offense meant to you, but there have been too many times that someone has brushed these things off, and then ended up hurt or worse."

"Oh, right." Millet was suddenly subdued.

Frank thought for a moment. "Now until we can learn more about your specific situation what I'd like to have happen is for you to not go anywhere alone. Preferably, me or my brother will either be with you or following you extremely discreetly. If you get anymore threats you'll need to contact us immediately and save them. If we're going to determine whether or not this is serious and whose behind it we need to have something to work with. Now can you think of anyone who would want to threaten you? See you hurt or killed?"

"Not that I can think of no." Dr. Millet shook his head. "Speaking of your brother, I was under the impression that he would be meeting here as well."

Frank paused thinking for a moment, wondering what he should reveal. "He was going to, but circumstances came up concerning his daughter. He'll be joining on with me as soon as possible.

"Is everything all right?"

"We're not sure yet. He just got a call saying she was in the emergency room of your hospital."

For a brief moment it seemed that Millet was wracking his brain. "Then she's in good hands. Dr. Drew's shift just started. She's a wonderful doctor, of course she's not from my department, but she's the best pediatrician we have. Nancy will take wonderful care of your niece."

"Did you just say, Nancy Drew?"

"Yes, why?"

"I know a Nancy Drew, but she's a detective."

"Can't be the same girl then. Dr. Drew works as though all her life she's been in medicine." Dr. Millet paused. "Why don't you come with me, and I'll take you to her?"

Frank surveyed the room where a few people sat waiting, including his brother, who was absentmindedly flipping through a magazine. "So what's going on?" He asked as he was approaching him. "Do you know what's wrong?"

Joe sighed, rubbing his face. "Cami's having her appendix taken out as we speak. According to the doctor that diagnosed her everything is fine."

"That's good." Frank took a seat. "I remember when you had your appendix out."

Joe started laughing. "What was I? Twelve? Man I milked that for all it was worth."

"I remember you told all the girls, that if they kissed you the cut would heal faster."

"And it worked on over half of them." Joe shook his head. "Those were the days." Then he paused. "Remind me not to let Cami visit any 12 year old boys who recently had surgery."

"You'll have to wait awhile for that to happen Joe."

"I know. Just one of those mental notes."

A female voice spoke up. "Goes right up there with not letting her date boys like you right Joe?" Both brothers turned, and that was when Frank saw her. Leaning against the wall with bright blue eyes sparkling, her face just as beautiful as ever. The only difference he could see was the way that her hair was a dark red instead of the way that he remembered it; as a light strawberry blond. "Frank, don't tell me you ran into a door on your way up here. I thought I'd get to see you looking as handsome as the cavalier Bond wannabe that you used to be."

Joe almost started cracking up. "First of all, everyone knows that I am the handsome cavalier Bond wannabe. Besides that you're making my brother blush."

"She is not." Frank denied although his cheeks were tinged with pink.

Nancy gave him a hug, and then leaned back crossing her arms. "So what did you do? That cut looks pretty bad. Not to mention the bruise." She gently fingered it, sending a slight twinge across his face. "Have you had anyone look at this?"

"Just some ice." Frank shook his head. "I was busy talking to the police." He spoke not really explaining what had happened. He could remember how he used to have a thing for Nancy; really how they had a thing for each other, and now it was all he could think of.

"Frank went after a mugger, and he got the lid of a garbage can thrown at his head." Joe smiled jokingly.

Nancy frowned. "This looks like it needs stitches. And you should get a tetanus booster to be safe. I would pass this off to a med student but today is a light day, and I think that I can definitely brush up on my skills." She paused. "Why don't we head downstairs and I can patch you up?"

Frank seemed hesitant. "I should wait here with Joe, and see how Camilla is. And then I have a case to get to work on."

"Just like a man." Nancy sighed. "Your case will go down the tubes if in the middle of some chase the infection you get from not closing this cut starts acting up." She paused checking the clock. "Camilla has about half an hour of surgery left and she won't be able to talk to you for a while after that. You'll be back up here in plenty of time."

Joe looked to his brother. "Listen to her Frank. She's a doctor now."

* * *

They hadn't really spoken since they had left for downstairs. Frank somehow found her different; things were now awkward. It used to be that they were on the same playing field. Both were detectives, solving cases together, and having this amazing chemistry that they were both always trying to deny, simply because they each had had someone waiting for them back home. Every time they did give in, somehow things always went awry. It was as though someone didn't want them together.

And now….suddenly she was no longer the ace detective that he had last known, but a doctor. Something he never would have pictured her doing; Nancy had never been that type of girl. And her hair…he had loved her hair. He could remember on the Egypt case, when they pretended to be married, watching her do her hair. It always complemented her beautifully.

"Have a seat right there." Nancy pointed to the end of a bed as she closed a door to the exam room. Then she was walking to a store closet and grabbing a suture kit. "I'll have a nurse go get your tetanus shot in a minute." In a smooth motion she pulled the rolling stool over with her foot and sat on it. She started setting the kit out on a small tray. "You've had stitches before right?" Frank nodded. "Then you know that this is going to sting a bit. Close your eye please." She began pouring some disinfectant onto a cotton ball.

They were into silence again, Frank winced as Nancy started rubbing the disinfectant onto his cut. "Ow. That's more than a bit." He complained.

Nancy laughed. "You're worse then a seven year old."

"What?" Frank asked somewhat confused, forgetting himself again.

"I'll tell you what. If you behave I'll give you a lollipop." She was teasing, putting them both into a silence one more.

She was wiping the blood off of his face, when he couldn't stand it anymore, and broke the silence, no matter how awkward a transition it was. "So…you dyed your hair."

"Yeah." Nancy nodded. "Around the time I started med school. Why?"

Frank shrugged. "I just noticed it."

"Well…you didn't. Dye your hair that is." She saw him frowning. "Look, I know that you want to ask so you might as well just do it."

"Ask what?"

"Why did you give up the lucrative career of being a world class detective, a career that you loved and were great at, to become an underpaid overworked pediatrics resident in an emergency room?"

Frank sighed. "OK then. Why did you give up the lucrative career of being a world class detective, a career that you loved and were great at, to become an underpaid overworked pediatrics resident in an emergency room?"

Both smiled at the tone, and laughed gently. "It's a bit of a long story." Nancy admitted. "It started about ten years ago… At the car accident that killed my dad, there was also a little girl. I saved her life, and then I did a lot of thinking while I was waiting for my college acceptance letters. The day that it all happened shook me up, but it also opened my eyes; I'm good at solving mysteries, but I didn't just solve them because of that. I could have easily blown them all off and left them to the people who were responsible. I solve them because I like helping people. And I realized that solving mysteries wasn't the only way to help them.

"So when I got my acceptance letters, I got one from Oxford, and I went there, and I started studying medicine, and then I got into pediatrics, and while I got residency offers from a few very nice prestigious and well paying hospitals, I chose to come here, because it's one of the best teaching hospitals." Nancy finished the story, leaning back to examine the stitches she had made so far.

Frank showed his understanding without nodding. "I thought it was a long story."

"That's the reader's digest version." Nancy informed. "Because I need to know what's been up with you for the past ten years."

"Same as always. No big changes on the Hardy front. Except for Cami…"

"Yeah, Joe told me about that." Nancy nodded quickly. "I'm sorry to hear about it. She seems like a really sweet girl."

"She is a really sweet girl. Spoiled by my parents, but she's a really good kid."

Nancy was about to say more when the door opened and a male nurse ducked his head in. "Nancy, there's a three year old drowning victim coming in, ETA five minutes."

Nancy turned around. "Thanks Jeremy. I'll be right there." Jeremy left and Nancy turned back. "I have to take this. I'll send someone in to finish you up." She paused as he nodded and then stood. "My shift ends at six tonight. How about we meet somewhere for dinner and you can tell me about the case that you're working?" She started removing her gloves. "I'll call you around five-thirtyish, and see how the outlook is?"

"Sounds like a plan."

* * *

"Dr. Drew, good evening."

Nancy turned wearily, looking at the doctor in front of her in the lounge. He was an older man, wearing blue scrubs that were starting to strain against his stomach. "Dr. Millet…" She half smiled. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Dr. Millet also smiled. "You saw a girl this morning…a Camilla Hardy?" He paused to clarify, mostly for his own benefit, but Nancy took the opportunity to speak anyway.

"Everything went all right with the surgery?" She frowned, thoughts of complications hurriedly running through her head.

"Oh yes, everything's fine." Millet quickly informed. "Girl is a gem. I just wanted to thank you for taking good care of her. Her father and uncle are doing some work for me."

A few things connected in Nancy's mind as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. "I was unaware of that."

"Yes, yes, fine gentlemen those two are." Dr. Millet adjusted his glasses. "Her father says you took wonderful care of her. He's extremely grateful." Then he started picking at a chart he was carrying. "His brother is under the impression that he knows you. He thought that you used to be a detective."

Nancy nervously laughed. _Damn it Hardy. _"Well, before today I hadn't seen anybody by the name Hardy in over ten years. He must be mistaken."

"That's what I told him." Millet confirmed, checking his watch. "I have to go up to surgery. I just wanted to thank you for taking such good care of Camilla."

"It's not a problem Dr. Millet. I was just doing my job." _My real job. And I'm not about to get caught up in the Hardy's case._ She turned to the front desk ready to grab the phone, but she instead saw Frank standing there with a smile.

"I know you said you'd call, but I had to come downstairs anyways and figured that I'd just talk to you now." He announced.

Nancy quickly came to the conclusion that he was trailing Millet and was intrigued as to why. _Although it won't hurt if I ask them what their case is about.

* * *

_

Thoughts?


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, any of the characters related to them, or any pop culture references that I may chose to include.

Author's notes: Thank you for all your reviews. I'm glad that for the most part you are all pleased with what has happened so far and I hope that you will be equally as happy with this chapter.

In a response to Amy, an anonymous reviewer, I'm sorry that you felt the Nancy/Ned breakup wasn't quite up to snuff. The way I saw it with this story, the characters were at a point where they were exhausted; Nancy just lost her father, and was emotionally drained and lost. I also didn't want to make Ned the bad guy in all of this, so he was relatively accepting of everything. Thank you for sharing your opinion with me, I just thought that I would explain my reasoning to you.

On with the story.

_Italics are thoughts.

* * *

_

Chapter Two

"In order to escape Prince Humperdinck and his men, Buttercup and Wesley went into the fire swamp, a dangerous swamp where lots of scary animals and other things were. They were going to …" Joe trailed off of his storytelling when he noticed that Camilla had fallen asleep. He bent down and kissed her forehead, gently brushing away some of her soft blond hair. As he stood, he adjusted the plain, muted blue hospital blanket so it covered his daughter more completely. Turning around he saw Frank and Nancy, the latter attaching a beeper to the belt of her jeans that he concluded she must have changed into.

"She all set?" Frank asked, pointing at his sleeping niece.

Joe nodded, walking over and then flicking the light switch, effectively dimming them. "She's exhausted."

"No surprise there. Surgery's hard on the body, even with routine procedures like this." Nancy informed as the three started down the hallway towards an elevator bank. "By the way, I have to say, I love the bedtime story. Most parents go for the variations of Cinderella, or Snow White. I don't think I've ever seen the Princess Bride."

"Oh yeah." Joe sighed, feeling a lot of the day's stress fade away; his daughter was safe, and now he could enjoy a reunion with an old friend. He smiled as they reached the bank of elevators and Nancy pressed the down button. "The first time she asked me for a story it was the first thing that came to mind, and now it's her favorite."

The doors opened and the here stepped into the elevator. "She sounds like your daughter." Nancy remarked.

Joe's smile turned wistful as he leaned against the elevator wall. "She has a lot of her mom in her." He admitted easily.

Nancy sympathized with the family; she knew it was hard for a girl to grow up without a mother, and once her father had admitted to her that it was just as hard to watch her grow up with so much of her mother's personality in her. "Who was she?" She asked quietly, hoping it wasn't too forward of her to approach the subject when they had been apart for so long.

"A girl named Lauren…I met her on a case about two years after you left."

A silence engulfed the group as the elevator reached the destination of the entrance to the parking garage. Joe was temporarily lost in memories, and Frank had just been silent. Nancy sighed, leading them out into the garage, and choosing a new topic that she hoped would bring Frank talking. "So you guys got an agency going?"

"Yep." Joe snapped back from his reminiscent state, the broad smile returning. "Hardy and Hardy Detective Agency; two brothers putting Bayport's finest to shame."

"It's going well then?"

"Well it's not exactly how we originally planned it." Frank began in a tone that was slightly less than warm towards Nancy. "And sometimes it can get overwhelming with only two detectives, but it can be said that it's going well."

Joe shot his brother a look, a little confused as to what was going through Frank's mind.

Nancy pulled her keys out of her pocketbook, ignoring the insinuations she found in Frank's statements. "That's real good for you guys. It must be great."

"It is." Joe watched as she pressed a button the remote attached to her key ring and the lights on a dark blue jeep flashed. "Oh Nan." He groaned a little. "Don't tell me you got rid of the Mustang."

Nancy grinned at his dismay, opening the driver's side door. "Don't worry. She's in River Heights, safe in the hand's of George. Do you guys need to get anything from your hotel before we eat?"

* * *

As they made their way to the small Italian restaurant their dialogue remained away from any topics of real importance such as the case the brothers were there for, and remained lighthearted between Joe and Nancy, with a slightly darker, and stiffer comment thrown in by Frank once in a while. Nancy wouldn't admit it to anyone but herself, but she had avoided the topic of the case; both brothers had been dropping little tidbits about it for most of the evening. She had been resisting the urge to question them on the subject. However, now as they sat in the restaurant waiting for their food to arrive her resolve was cracking as the discussion topics ran thin. "So what case brings you two here?"

Frank was taking a drink, so once more Joe was fielding the question. "Apparently someone is threatening Dr. Millet, from your hospital. He's gotten a few messages. I didn't get to talk to him myself since I had to go see about Cami, but according to Frank we already have a few problems."

"Such as?"

"Millet doesn't really want us here, he doesn't think that anyone could possibly want to hurt him, and we haven't been able to hear the threats for ourselves yet." Joe reiterated for the doctor.

Nancy smiled, and grabbed a piece of bread from the basket in the center of the table. "I take it Mrs. Millet is the one who called you."

"Well she made him call us." Joe corrected. "How'd you guess?"

"I've met her a couple times at holiday parties and such." Nancy started to butter the bread. "She's a nice woman, but she blows every little thing out of proportion."

"So it's probably just a prank and she's overreacting." Joe inferred.

Nancy shrugged, not really believing that option. "It's one possibility, but it sounds like a copout."

"Oh?" Frank finally spoke up, raising an eyebrow as he looked over. The feelings of awkwardness from earlier were still there, but they were mutating into something a little bit different. It was clear to him that he was not dealing with the same Nancy; as he remembered it the old Nancy had more tact when it came to shooting down theories. He couldn't believe that she had changed so much. "And what is your professional opinion?" The word professional was emphasized, and it was clearly the focus of his comment.

Nancy brushed some of her hair away from her face uneasily. _Don't get involved Drew._ "Well I don't really know much about the case…" She trailed off, hoping that the answer would be enough. Getting involved in this case would not be to her advantage.

"I'd still be quite interested in hearing what you have to say on the matter." Frank shook his head, looking her in the eye. "Since we haven't worked together for so long and all."

"Well I think that you need to at least think about taking this thing seriously." _This is such a bad idea._ "And you should start by looking at the families of patients he's lost recently. Sometimes they get pretty aggressive."

Joe's eyes darted back and forth between the two, from the hard gaze of Frank, to Nancy's own strong one, and found that neither looked ready to back away from what appeared to be an event that Joe was sure was going to cause bad things. "Thanks Nan. That's a big help."

Before Nancy could respond, Frank continued with his behavior. "Anything else?"

"Well you can't do much else until you have suspects. Just keep him accompanied. That's probably the best you can do until you get further into the case."

"Probably?" Frank probed.

"If you find out that it is serious, remove Dr. Millet from the hospital. Our security is horrible."

"I don't suppose you want to join us?" Joe flashed her a little grin while offering what he hoped would end in an intervention. "It won't look very out of place if you follow Millet around the hospital all day."

"Tell you what." Nancy inwardly sighed. "I'll keep an extra eye on Cami for you while you investigate."

"Oh come on." Joe goaded. "I've never known Nancy Drew to turn down a mystery."

"Forget it Joe. She's probably very busy working at the hospital. Aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am." She conceded quietly.

"But rest assured," Frank continued quickly, "because I'm sure that she'll still be able to give us helpful tips to right our wrongs if we take the time to go and see her."

Joe shot Frank a look. He couldn't believe that his brother had said that. "Frank..." He warned.

"That's not what I meant by what I said." Nancy defended just as soon as the name was Joe's mouth. "I was just offering you my opinion."

"Your professional opinion." Frank reiterated, again putting the stress on professional.

Joe tried again as Frank's tone got more sarcastic. "Frank…"

Nancy wasn't about to back away though, despite Joe's weak attempt at interference. "My opinion that you asked for." She was quick to point this out.

"I only asked for it because you were dropping hints that we were completely wrong."

"I didn't say that at all." Blue eyes, that appeared slightly darker when put with her darker hair flashed. "I was saying that there were other possibilities and as a detective you should know better than to rule those out without at least looking at them."

"And you obviously know this because you've been doing so much detective work lately."

"Look, you don't know about what I've been doing these past ten years and you have no right to assume that--."

"You've been playing around with some fantasy spawned from watching too much ER." Frank cut her off quickly.

Joe was shocked that Frank would say something like that. "Frank!"

Frank pushed himself away from the table and stood. "I'll be back in a couple minutes." He left towards the bathrooms quickly.

Nancy put her head in one hand, and sighed, a little pink rising to her cheeks as the other customers at the restaurant glanced at and then turned away from the scene. "I am so sorry, Joe."

"No, I'm sorry." Joe shook his head. "I don't know why he's acting like that."

"I think it has something to do with the fact that I went to medical school." Nancy took a sip of her wine as Joe gave her a questioning look. "Come on. You heard what he said…about the agency being busy with only two detectives…the way he kept emphasizing professional. Something about me being a doctor bothers him."

"It's not so much about you being a doctor as it is about you not being a detective."

_Which you don't exactly know about…_ "I had to make some decisions. I didn't just wake up and say, OK no more detective work ever."

"I know." Joe's expression softened a bit more. "You have your reasons, that I'm sure you'll share with us when you're ready. And once Frank sits down and listens I'm sure he'll come around."

"Joe I'm impressed." Nancy's happy demeanor started to return with a small smile. "I thought you were the…" She searched for the proper wording of the term, "quick-reacting, thinking a little less, brother."

"Camilla tended to reverse a lot of that stuff for us." Joe responded quickly. "Now I am the calm and reserved, yet just as handsome brother."

"And still the one with all of the wit."

"Well, nothing's gonna get rid of my wit."

Nancy opened her mouth to say more but was cut off before she could start by a short beep. She glanced down to her beeper and read the small screen. _You seriously had to call me now?_ Inwardly she groaned. "I'm so sorry, I really have to take this."

"No, go." Joe waved her off as she stood.

"I'll be right back."

Joe found himself sitting alone at the table as Nancy made her way towards the section of the small restaurant where the courtesy phones were located. Shortly after the point where she left a waiter delivered three plates of food, which was followed quickly after by Frank returning from the table, looking slightly more calm then before. "Feeling better now?" He inquired in a teasing manner.

Frank took his seat, refusing to answer Joe with a response. He glanced towards the empty seat that was Nancy's. "She didn't…leave, did she?" He asked the question in a softer tone, implying that he did care.

"No, your ex-almost girlfriend didn't leave." Joe shook his head, smiling a bit more at his brother's concern. "She went to return a phone call." He barely paused. "Although I wouldn't be surprised if she did leave after what you said to her."

"That was not my fault." Frank was quick to defend himself.

Joe scoffed a little. "You attacked her. How is that not your fault?"

"Well…well…" Frank struggled to come up with a reason. He didn't really know. In all honesty, he did know that it was his fault, but he wasn't about to go admitting that now. "Well…she dyed her hair."

Joe laughed. "Come on Frank. If you're going to try and pass the blame off at least come up with something better than she dyed her hair."

"But that's what she did." Joe simply had to raise an eyebrow to get a response of explanation from his brother. "She turned her back on her past and she dyed her hair."

"Do the soap opera writers know about you?"

"Look, if you're not gonna take me seriously then we can just not talk about it--,"

"Frank you know I'm just teasing you. We can talk about it, we just probably shouldn't now."

"Well, what makes now such a bad time?"

"She's coming back."

Joe pointed to her as she returned and took her seat with a slightly rattled, but apologetic look on her face. "Sorry about that." She spoke as she unfolded her napkin, looking at the food down in front of her.

"Is everything all right?" Joe inquired.

"Yeah. The hospital just wanted to check on something about a patient I worked today."

The brother's nodded in a quiet acceptance. "Well then," Joe sighed, noticing that neither of his companions were about to talk. "Now that the tense part of the evening is out of the way, let's eat."

Frank gave a tight half smile. "Sounds like a plan." Eating was good. When he was eating, he couldn't make things worse.

The three all lifted their silverware and they were about to start eating when a quiet ringing erupted from Joe's pocket, prompting the silverware to return to the table as Joe pulled out a cell phone and held up a finger, pushing himself and leaving from the table to answer the call in a less crowded area of the restaurant.

Frank and Nancy were left alone.

"So…how's your head?" Nancy lifted her fork again, creating small talk as she started to twirl her pasta with it.

Frank only graced her with a short, terse answer. "Fine."

"Good." She responded softly, slightly downcast that he wasn't coming around at all. "It looks like it should hurt."

"It doesn't." Frank started to roughly cut his veal.

There was a small silence. Nancy couldn't understand what was so wrong that he couldn't even attempt at pathetic small talk until his brother returned. She ate a few bites of her food, but then placed her fork down; she could not take the silence from a friend she hadn't seen in ten years. She had to say something. "Have you solved any good cases lately?" His gaze hardened more and Nancy instantly regretted the question. _You had to pick that, didn't you Drew?_

"I doubt that you would find any of them particularly interesting or stimulating."

It was a thinly veiled jab that Nancy couldn't have missed. She lightly slapped her hand on the table in anger. "Damn it Hardy!" She spoke to him in a quiet but harsh voice. "I have not changed as you want me to have."

Frank had his mouth open to reply, but Joe chose that moment to return to the table. "That was Dr. Millet. He got a note in his mailbox at the hospital." He informed quickly. "I told him to save it and we'd be there as soon as we could."

Nancy started to stand. "I'll go take care of this and give you guys a ride back to the hospital." She quickly volunteered.

Frank also stood, quick to rebut with an idea of his own. "There's no need to ruin everyone's dinner. You and Joe have both had long days. I'll go take care of Dr. Millet, and you two can finish your dinner."

In a way Nancy was grateful. If he wasn't going to let her near the case it was a lot easier to stay away from it, and Millet or anyone else wouldn't know that she was involved with detective work. "Here, you should still take my car." She started to rifle through her bag for her keys.

"That's OK." Frank waved her off. "I'll just catch a cab. I'll call you if anything comes up Joe."

Before Joe could even say anything to agree with or protest Frank's decision his brother was gone. "He wasn't too eager to get of here was he?" He commented slightly sarcastically as the two sat back down. "I don't suppose you two had a little talk while I was gone?"

"Very little."

"He'll come around."

* * *

Nancy and Joe exited the restaurant after finishing their dinners in a quiet but conversational manner. There had been no word from Frank, and they had avoided the topic of him in order to keep things a bit lighter.

They started to walk down the street to where Nancy parked her car, and Joe decided that maybe it would be OK for him to bring up one of the topics that had been mentioned that night, as it wasn't one of the large issues, and it did have him curious. "So…why exactly did you dye your hair?"

Nancy just laughed as they passed under a streetlight. "I can't believe that out of everything…" She trailed off as she noticed a trio of stone-faced men in black coming from one direction. _Not now…_ She turned her head to see a trio of similarly faced women coming towards them in the opposite direction. _You couldn't have waited twenty minutes?_ "Joe, you don't by any chance want to just take my car and go on your own do you?" She started to hand him the keys that she had drawn upon their exit of the restaurant. "I just realized I have something to take care of around here."

Joe watched as her eyes darted around and she tensed. There was no missing what she was looking at. "Guess again."

Nancy sighed; the response she was expecting, but definitely not the one that she wanted. "Well then, I guess this won't take long." She slipped into a fight stance and turned as the six she had spotted started to charge. She took the women, while Joe started with the boys, and she managed to get a kick to one of the attackers before they could think, taking an offensive standing on the entire thing.

Joe on the other hand took a defensive standpoint, waiting until the men through a punch at him to start fighting back and deflecting, a little curious as to what was going on, and why Nancy knew it was going on. They fought for a minute or so before he said anything. "So Nance, care to explain what this is all about?"

The only answer he got was a slight grunt of pain as one of the men that he thought he had down managed to get up and kick her in the cheek. He turned to help the stunned detective but that only managed to get his arms grabbed in a stronghold by one of the other men and then he felt the cold metal of a knife against his throat.

The fight instantly stopped as Nancy stood and turned around her eyes flashing dangerously. "Relax Shaw, he's with me."

The knife dropped and the hold relaxed causing Joe to quickly pull away. "You mean to tell me that you know these guys?"

A dark van pulled up and the group of attackers grabbed an arm off of Joe and Nancy and started to bring towards it. Nancy didn't answer until they were shoved in the back and the doors were closed leaving them in the dark rear of a windowless van. "I am getting in so much trouble for telling you this." She sighed, shaking her head. "Those guys are the reason that I dyed my hair."

* * *

Yes, I know Frank's a little out of character, but this is really how I see him reacting to someone so close to him being gone for so long and being drastically different. So keeping that in mind what are your thoughts?

Oh, and I know the spelling of Humperdinck looks weird, but this is how they spelled it on the IMDB site so I just went with it.


	4. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the characters associated with them, or any pop culture references I may choose to include.

Author's Notes: Thank you for your reviews. I'm glad that you all are supportive of this story. I promise your confusion about what's going on with Nancy will be cleared up eventually.

_Italics are thoughts._

Chapter Three

When Frank arrived at the hospital, Dr. Millet was sitting behind his desk working with some papers. "Sorry it took me so long to get here. My cab got caught in traffic." He apologized quickly. Getting away from the dinner had done him a world of good. He was calmer, and generally felt better now that he had something to focus on other than Nancy.

"You haven't missed anything." Millet waved the apology off.

"Nothing else has happened?" Frank verified, taking a seat that Millet gestured to.

"Only the note." Millet found the sheet of paper over to Frank as he announced this. "When I spoke to your brother over the phone he said that you would both be here."

Frank unfolded the paper while answering the question nonchalantly. "We were in the middle of dinner with an old friend of ours that we ran into here. I volunteered to come alone since he's had a long day." It was a short note, typed and centered in the middle of the sheet of paper. Overall it was a rather standard threat. "If you're not careful, the next life you have to save may be your own." He read the note aloud under his breath, then raised his voice. "Were the messages you got on your voicemail like this?"

"They were along those lines yes." Millet paused, thinking back to Frank's previous comment, his curiosity quickly getting the better of him. "Who did you run into here? Was it a patient or an employee?"

"Actually it was Nan--…Dr. Drew." Frank sighed after cutting himself off and correcting his statement. It sounded too natural to say Dr. Drew. It wasn't supposed to be a natural title. She was supposed to be just Nancy Drew, or Detective Drew, or even Special Agent Drew, but she wasn't supposed to be Dr. Drew. "It turns out that she was the girl that I mentioned to you earlier."

Dr. Millet raised an eyebrow. "Really?" He sounded rather interested and mildly surprised. "That's surprising. I can't imagine her as anything but a doctor."

_I can't imagine her as anything but a detective._ "I guess people surprise you everyday." He coughed uncomfortably, wanting to be on any other subject but Nancy. "Does this note give you any ideas on who would want to threaten you?"

Millet thought for a moment. "I still don't know of anyone. As far as I know, no one is this angry with me."

"Well, it has been…brought to my attention that sometimes when you lose a patient their family might blame you." Frank didn't want to, and wasn't about to explain that Nancy had provided him with this concept. He didn't want to admit that it was a good thought, and he certainly didn't want her to know that he was using it; he didn't want to have to admit that she could still work mysteries even though she had abandoned that job. "Has anything like that happened recently?"

"I can't say that it has. I don't see as many of those reactions like the ER does."

_So much for that option._ Millet was not making it any easier to attempt and solve the case. "Does anybody have access to the mailbox that this came in?"

"Anyone who works at the hospital. But it probably wouldn't be too hard to get in without working here."

_Thanks for clarifying that. It's not like we want to narrow down our suspects or anything. _"In that case we should probably get you home. Are you done here?"

"I was just waiting for you."

"Let's go then. If what you've suggested is true then you shouldn't be spending much time here until we have a better feel for the case."

"All right. I'll just put these papers in order and we can get going." Millet shuffled the papers on his desk, moving a few into files that were then put in a drawer of his desk.

Minutes later the two were on their way to the parking garage. Frank was planning on bringing Millet safely to his home, and then most likely he was going to go back to his hotel and sleep. He pulled his cell phone out. "I'm gonna check in with Joe, He's probably done with dinner and he should know what's going on." Millet waved him off unconcerned as they entered the parking garage. Frank dialed while he followed the doctor. He waited, listening to the rings that were eventually followed by a generic voicemail message. He hung up without bothering to leave a message. "That's weird. He's not answering."

"Maybe he and Dr. Drew have found a connection that they hadn't realized because of their time apart." Dr. Millet suggested.

Frank nearly blanched at the thought. Before that day he would have laughed at the suggestion, but everything he had thought about Nancy was quickly destroyed when he saw her as a doctor. She was quite different. Who knew what she would do now?

The screeching of tires brought Frank out of his thoughts. The walking companions froze in their tracks, with Millet slightly ahead of Frank. Frank's head snapped to the right, and saw nothing coming towards them. His head went to the left and he saw a dark car with blinding headlights speeding at them showing no signs of stopping.

Frank ran forward and dove into Dr. Millet, sending them crashing into a parked car. He listened to the sound of the car going past combined with a now active car alarm and pushed himself off of the doctor to turn just as the car rounded the corner with another scream of its tires.

"Frank what is the meaning of this!" Millet picked himself up off of the car and turned to face the detective.

There was a loud crash accompanied by the sound of crumpling metal. "That guy just tried to run you down." Frank informed, starting to run again, going around the corner until he saw the dark car next to a concrete barrier. He went to the front of the car and tore the door open to find the driver slumped over the wheel.

"Why are you running?" Millet was breathing heavily when he reached the location. "Oh." His eyes fell on the crash. "Well, move, I can help the man."

"There's no need." Frank pulled his hand away from the driver's neck. "He's already dead."

* * *

"You know." Joe smiled a little as Nancy finished her story. They were sitting in a small gray walled room, at a folding metal table in two folding metal chairs. Joe wasn't sure where the building that the room was located was, because his 'captors', and he would use that term very loosely at this point, had been very careful to not let him near any windows or furthermore, fresh air. According to Nancy, she didn't know either. "Frank would probably ease up on you a little if you told him what you just told me." He continued leaning back in his chair. "It kind of puts his little ER theory to sleep."

Nancy, who had managed to wipe the blood away from her split lip, but had done little else to treat the bruising flesh, crossed her arms over her chest. "The only reason that I'm not going to get fired for telling you is that Shaw and the others dragged you into it."

"So?" Joe shrugged. "Get them to drag Frank into it."

"It's not that easy. I only get…visits, like the one you were just involved in, once in a while. Besides, after tonight they'll be a lot more careful about when I'm approached."

"Fine. But you know what they say about rules…" Joe trailed off, his old mischievous grin on his face.

Nancy rolled her eyes. "I thought you were the responsible Hardy now."

"I am. But that doesn't mean that I'm not above breaking a few rules every now and then." Joe shifted in the chair that he had been sitting in and waiting for almost an hour. "Is this the most comfortable room that they have around here?"

"I'll put it this way. Furnishing does not get top billing in the budget."

"That it doesn't, Ms. Drew." A hard voice spoke loudly as its owner opened the door and entered the room. He was bald, broad shouldered, and had icy green eyes that added to his stern and rough around the edges persona. "And…" He gave Joe the once over. "Welcome to our establishment, Mr…Hardy was it?"

Joe grinned and stuck out his hand to the man. "Please, call me Joe."

The man's hands remained laced behind his back. "It will do you good to remember that everything you been told and that you hear tonight is never to be repeated, Mr. Hardy." He informed in a clipped tone. "Now Ms. Drew, I brought you in today for a reason."

"Well, I've never known you to do things for laughs O'Neil."

He sent a glare towards her at her slight sarcasm. "You're about to go into the next phase of our plan."

* * *

"So is everything always so cloak and dagger?" Joe inquired slightly cheekily after they were dropped back at the location where they had been picked up. He had to admit that he had been pretty surprised by the information that Nancy had provided him with. Not to mention that the method of which it was revealed earned points for creativity.

"More so." Nancy nodded her head, pulling her car keys once more and matching his tone. "Normally we have suspenseful background music and theme songs." They laughed and walked in a silence until they reached Nancy's jeep and got in. "Call your brother. He might have tried to call you when we were with O'Neil."

Joe reached into his pocket and pulled the phone that had been on silent per Nancy's instruction since their so-called abduction. He opened it and started to adjust the volume. Not seconds later it started to ring. "Hello...Well Nan and I got a little tied up in something in…No, I'm not gonna go into details with you right now…You're kidding…I missed the entire case?"

"What's going on?" Nancy interrupted.

Joe looked over. "The guy making the threats tried to run Millet down, he crashed, and died on impact." He turned his attention back to the phone. "What Frank…No, I was just telling Nancy what's going on…Yeah, she's driving me back to the hotel now…Of course we weren't already at the hotel…OK, you seriously need to get some sleep…I'll see you back at the hotel." Joe hung up the phone. "Well. That was easy."

* * *

Nancy threw her bag on the kitchen table tiredly when she finally managed to enter her apartment. It had been quite the day, even by her standards, and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep. However, she knew she would never be able to sleep if she didn't talk to someone.

First, she walked over to the refrigerator and opened the freezer, pulling out an ice pack. Then she grabbed the phone off the wall receiver and a dishtowel off of the handle of her oven, went to the living room where she sat on the couch and began to wrap the ice pack in the towel. Once it was wrapped she placed it gingerly to the corner of her mouth and then dialed a familiar number.

"Hello?" A sleepy voice answered.

"Bess?" Nancy asked hopefully. "It's Nancy."

"You do realize what time it is right? That us normal people are sleeping at this hour?"

"I ran into Frank and Joe today." Nancy blurted, the ice pack crackling every time her jaw moved.

Bess' voice immediately perked up. "Hardy?"

"Yeah."

"Well, give me details. How are they? Are they still as cute as ever? What are they up to? Don't tell me they're doctors too. That would be too weird."

"No, they're not doctors. But they sure have changed."

"Oh no. They aren't cute anymore."

"Bess, I didn't mean superficially."

"Thank goodness. You had me scared there Nan. So, if they're still gorgeous and they're not doctors, than what has changed?"

"Well for one thing, Joe has a daughter. That's how I ran into them."

"What? Joe Hardy has a kid? How old is she?"

"She's four. Her mother died right when she was born. Joe's been raising her on his own."

"No kidding. I would have thought that Frank would have settled down first. Anyways…what else? What are they doing in Port Winston?"

"They were working a case. But I guess that wrapped itself up, so they probably won't be here much longer."

"Well, make sure you got contact information. And then make sure you send it to me."

"I can get you Joe's. I can't really guarantee Frank's though."

"What do you mean? I thought you and Frank were thick as thieves?"

Nancy sighed. "He didn't exactly take the whole no more mysteries, I'm a doctor thing so well."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. He's actually pretty mad about it I think. We almost got into a huge fight in the middle of a restaurant."

"I can't believe out of all the people that he would do that. What is that crackling noise? Are you on your cell phone?"

"No." Nancy shifted the ice pack. "I'm icing down my chin."

"You mean Frank hit you?"

"Of course not. This is from a different fight."

"Well good…So what are you going to do about Frank?"

"What exactly do you want me to do Bess?"

"Clearly you have to get him to play nice again so you two can get together."

"Bess, that's not gonna happen."

"Why not? He's not seeing anyone is he?"

"Not that I know of but--,"

"Then make nice with him and then make out with him. You have been far too single lately."

"Bess, I didn't call you for advice on my lack of love life."

"Well that's what you get when you call me. If you wanted actual advice you should have called George."

"Carry on."

"All you have to do is show him that you're still the same Nancy. Solve a case with him."

"They just finished their case."

"Find another one. You only get like what, fifty mugging victims a day at that hospital of yours? They can't catch all of them. Pick one and hunt him down."

Nancy shook her head at Bess' exaggeration. "Bess, do you have any idea how hard that would be?"

"Make it work."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Good. Ooh, I met this gorgeous guy at the coffee shop today, named Michael. We're going to dinner tomorrow night."

"Bess weren't you seeing someone like…two days ago?"

"You mean Andrae?"

"Yes. What happened to Andrae?"

* * *

"So are we planning on talking about it?"

Frank turned at Joe's question as they entered their hotel room. It adjoined with the one that Camilla and Katie had been sharing. "About what? The case?"

"You're kidding right?" Joe raised an eyebrow. His brother could really be dense. "How about we talk about Nancy?"

"There's nothing to talk about." Frank's face darkened as he sat on the bed, removing his jacket.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"But…but…she dyed her hair!" Joe mocked quickly, then transformed back into a serious tone. "You're telling me you said that earlier and you think that there's nothing to talk about? OK, then." He removed his own jacket and tossed it over his suitcase that he had yet to unpack.

"OK. Maybe there's something to talk about." Frank sighed, flopping backwards onto the bed.

"Good." Joe jumped onto his bed, landing on his side with a slight bounce facing Frank. He clasped his hands across his chest. "The doctor is in." There was a silence. "OK the whole talking thing works when the one with the problem does the talking."

"Well you pretty much already said everything."

"What did I say?"

"She dyed her hair."

"That's it?" Joe could not believe that his brother was so worked up over hair color.

"Well, that and the fact that she's a doctor now."

_Jackpot._ "Why does that bother you so much?"

"She's different Joe. Don't you see that? She's not the same Nancy."

_Oh if I could tell you. _"She's not that different Frank. The best point you have for that argument is that her hair is darker."

"She's a doctor. A doctor. Not a detective, or an agent or anything. A doctor."

"The essentials of her are still there. She still helps people, she still solves problems." Joe hesitated before adding the next part, but he knew that it would definitely lead to something from Frank. "She's still drop dead gorgeous."

"Don't go there, Joe. I am so not in the mood to go there with you right now."

"Fine. But trust me. We will be going there."

"I can hardly wait." Frank paused, sitting up again. "I just keep getting the feeling that something's off."

Joe knew that his brother wasn't voicing everything that he thought, but he also knew that now wasn't the time to push the truth out of him. "We'll talk more in the morning."

Frank didn't have time to say anything as his phone rang. "Hello?" He answered quickly. "What…we'll be right there."

"What's going on?" Joe sat up, looking at the deadly serious look on Frank's face.

"That was the police. Dr. Millet and his wife were just shot. They're both dead."

* * *

Thoughts? 


	5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the characters associated with them, or any pop culture references I may choose to include.

Author's Notes: Thank you for your reviews. I'm glad that you all are supportive of this story. I promise that what is going on with Nancy will be cleared up eventually.

Sorry about the delay. I was at my camp, and we're seriously lucky that we have indoor plumbing there, so internet access was out of the question.

_Italics are thoughts.

* * *

_

Chapter Four

"When was the last time you saw Dr. Millet and his wife?"

Frank looked over to the police detective that was interviewing him and sighed. He had been in Port Winston for what was technically less than a day and already he had been forced to talk with the police for what was now the third time. It was starting to get rather tedious.

He and Joe had gone to the crime scene (the Millet's home) the moment they had received the call from the police. Detectives investigating the case had naturally started to question them for more information about what had been going on in the Millet's lives that would lead to such a shooting. Joe, knowing very little due to his preoccupation with Camilla, was done long before Frank. With there being little else to do Frank had sent him back to the hotel to ensure his being well rested.

On the other hand he had been talking for quite some time, after going into the interview already thoroughly exhausted. "When I dropped him off here after the accident in the parking garage." Frank answered easily. " I was in the entryway for a minute while I explained everything to Mrs. Millet."

"Explained what?" The detective looked for clarification.

Frank swallowed and his expression darkened. "I explained that Dr. Millet was perfectly safe, and that the guy who had tried to run him down was dead. I had assumed that he was the same guy that had been --,"

"It was a perfectly natural assumption." The detective assured him as he cut him off. It was clear that Frank was feeling a little guilty about what had occurred that night, even though to him it seemed that nothing could have prevented the incident. He glanced down at his notes. "Did anything seem out of the ordinary to you?"

Frank thought for a moment. "Not really." He paused before speaking again. "Mrs. Millet did mention that someone was waiting for Dr. Millet in the living room, but I didn't notice a car or anything in driveway."

"Did you see this person or get his name? Anything that may help us locate him?"

"Well, she said it was a colleague…a doctor. I kind of get the feeling that she didn't know him that well, since she didn't remember his name. After that, I left."

"When you left did you notice anything?"

"No." Frank shook his head. "I think Mrs. Millet said something about going up to bed. Nothing seemed abnormal."

"That's interesting." The detective mused. "We found her in the kitchen."

"Where was Dr. Millet?"

"He was in the living room, like you said."

Frank ran a hand through his hair. "We need to find that doctor. He might have seen the killer coming to the house."

"He very well might be the killer."

* * *

"Morning Tom." Nancy greeted as he entered the ER.

The handsome doctor flashed her half a smile as he entered. "Hey Nance. Did you hear about Dr. Millet?"

Nancy sighed. She had heard about the sudden turn that the Hardys now had to deal with. The moment she had entered the ER one of the night nurses had informed her about the sudden death of their colleague and his wife. The first thing she had thought about was the Hardys; what had happened, and was it case related? "Yeah, I just heard. I can't believe it."

"I know. He must have seriously ticked someone off." Tom removed his jacket.

"What do you mean?" Nancy frowned.

"You didn't know they were shot?"

"No…just that they were dead and that the hospital was having a small memorial service upstairs this afternoon." _Oh boy. _

His dark eyes flashed a little. "We should go to that, pay our respects." He suggested casually. He had offered all that he was going to for information, but he wasn't done talking in the least. There were many other topics he was interested in touching on with Nancy.

"Yeah, that's a good idea." Nancy smiled a little, deciding to push away from the dark topic of death. It was not her case to be worrying about. The Hardys would handle it. Besides, she had her own work to do. "And maybe afterwards…" She trailed off, realizing what an awkward transition she was about to make.

"Maybe afterwards we could go have some dinner together?"

Nancy was surprised a little by Tom's apparent mind-reading capabilities; he asked her what she had been about to ask him. It was a more than welcome suggestion that made things much easier on her end. "That sounds great. I look forward to it."

"So do I. You know I've been meaning to ask you out for a while now."

_Which is so apparent by the way you seem to go out with a different girl every week…_ Nancy had to stop herself from rolling her eyes a little at this comment, instead choosing to smile sweetly in a way that caused her blue eyes to twinkle. She needed to go along with this. "Well, I'm very glad you did."

"So am I."

They went into a silence, that Nancy was eager to break. "So, I'll meet you in the lounge before the service?"

"Sure." Tom glanced around. "I'd better get to work."

"Yeah, me too."

"See you around, then."

What Tom did next surprised Nancy a bit more. As his lips met hers her hand instinctively went up and ran through his curly brown hair. He flashed a smile and winked as he pulled away, turning and heading towards the doctor's lounge. "See you around." She muttered under her breath. As she looked around the main desk area she saw that she was earning the gaze of many coworkers and her cheeks tinged pink. "OK, back to work." She encouraged, her eyes falling on one particular pair of men that were walking towards her. _And here it comes._

"Why Nancy, that was quite the lovely performance."

"Gee thanks Joe." Nancy looked at the blond brother, and then to the brunette brother, who's skin was slightly pale and he was starting to get dark circles under his eyes. "Morning Frank. You look like you need some sleep."

"That's because he does." Joe's tone was way more energetic then his brother appeared, which only seemed to add on to Frank's annoyance. "I tried to get him to stay at the hotel and get some sleep, but he insisted on coming here and figuring out what happened last night."

"Yeah, I heard about that." Nancy nodded sympathetically. "Do you guys have any ideas about what happened?"

"We have a few leads." Frank answered tightly. He had been planning on attempting to be nicer, but the display he had seen upon entering the hospital had pushed every thought of that out of his mind. "The police will be coming in here later to interview the staff. Someone from here was the last person to see Dr. Millet alive."

"We thought that we'd come down here before visiting hours to see you and see if you had any idea who would be visiting the good doctor so late in the evening." Joe continued his brother's statement.

Nancy thought for a minute. Even if she did have an idea, and she didn't, none of her coworkers seemed like they would be able to kill someone. "I can't think of anyone. No one is…was that mad at Dr. Millet. I guess it could have been someone that he does studies with but… Are you guys sure it was someone from this hospital?"

"His wife said it was a doctor and a colleague." Frank gave his answer quickly. "So yes, we're sure."

"Well then, I guess I can't be of much help. Sorry guys."

"That's OK." Joe lightly slapped her shoulder in his classic friendly and reassuring way. "I'm sure that between the police and us we'll be able to find some sort of lead."

A silence followed. Frank was staring rather coldly at Nancy, which is what caused her to be a little addled when he was the one who opened his mouth to speak first. "So who was that guy?"

Nancy breathed a sigh of relief. That wasn't nearly the remark that she was preparing herself for. "Tom Phillips. He's a doctor here."

"So he's your boyfriend?" Frank pushed, his tone unrelenting in its impersonality.

"No. He's no one special."

Joe shot his brother a look. "Relax Frank. What's with the third degree?"

Frank's eyes darted to his brother, and then back to Nancy. "I'm curious to find out about Nancy and how she just gives herself away like that for someone that's 'no one special.'"

Frank barely had time to react as Nancy's hand collided with his cheek, the momentum of which sent him to the ground. She thrust her hand angrily into her pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, handing it to Joe, who was quick to notice the way her eyes had managed to go shades darker in a matter of seconds. "Bess asked me to give this to you. I'll talk to you later."

She turned and left quickly, leaving the boys in a stunned silence. Most of the room was watching them. After a brief moment, Joe reached down and help his brother up. "Come on Frank, let's go see Cami."

* * *

Joe sat in the hospital cafeteria, waiting for his brother. They had agreed to meet for lunch after Frank had decided that his time would be better spent helping the police with their investigation. He had been somewhat glad when his brother had left, if only because he didn't know how long he would have been able to resist hitting him, himself. Frank's attitude was getting out of control, and as much as he wanted to stand by his brother, it was getting hard to.

However when his brother walked up to the table he was sitting at, he realized that Frank had gotten quite a bit of what he deserved, and a bit of his own annoyance melted away as a smile went up on his face. "Wow, did she slap you or punch you?"

Frank did his best to glare at his younger brother, but it was hard to take the glare seriously when his face was looking far from what it usually did. His right eye was swollen rather nicely, and it's color was attempting to match the bruise on his eyebrow he had received from chasing down the mugger the day before. "She punched me."

"Ouch. Did you put any ice on it?" Joe couldn't fight the giddiness he was getting from his brother's pain; he deserved it. However in his credit he did manage to fight back any actual laughter.

"OK, I seriously don't need this right now. I'm gonna go back to work on the case." Frank made to stand.

Joe stopped him quickly. "All right, all right. I'll stop. Have you guys found anything out down there?"

"Just that Dr. Millet was a very beloved and hardworking individual, and no one can think of anyone who had any ill feelings towards him." Frank sighed. "He's like…a male Mary Poppins or something."

"Well, that's a good thing then."

"How is that a good thing? It means we still have no idea who was at his house last night."

"Mary Poppins was only practically perfect in every way. There's a flaw in his system somewhere. We just have to hunt it down."

"You do realize we're speaking in strictly metaphors right?"

"Strictly Disney metaphors." Joe corrected. "Which reminds me, I promised Cami we'd watch a little bit of Beauty and the Beast before her nap. I'll talk to you later."

Joe was gone from the cafeteria before Frank had time to protest. He glanced down at his tray, that held a slightly less than green salad and a worse looking piece of chicken. It didn't take him long to decide he didn't really have that much of an appetite, and he stood, bring the tray to the trash can and dumping it.

"Yeah, I found out last night that she used to be a detective."

The male voice drifted into Frank's ear, and he glanced to it's source by a payphone; it was the doctor he had seen kissing Nancy…Tom.

"Don't worry, it'll all be taken care of by the end of the night…we have a date… Yeah…by the end of the night, Nancy Drew isn't gonna be around to even try and investigate anything."

Frank watched as the doctor hung up the phone and exited the cafeteria, then he frowned deeply. This was serious. He didn't know what was going on with Nancy, but now it was clear that she was in danger, and like her or not, he had to warn her.

* * *

"Margie, can you bring little Jenny here up to x-ray?" Nancy asked. The nurse nodded and Nancy exited the room, only to be confronted with the last person she wanted to see at the moment. She turned to the admissions desk, with the intent of looking at her charts, completely ignoring him.

Frank was not going to be put off by this though, and he quickly followed her. "Nancy, are you going out with that Tom guy tonight?"

Nancy opened up one of her charts taking a pen and starting to make notations. "Not that it's any of your business, but yes."

"Well, don't."

"I don't think that you're in any position to tell me what to do, Frank." She closed the chart and grabbed another one as she spoke in a tone that rivaled his own previously icy one. "Now leave, I have work to do."

"Nance, look I overheard him up in the cafeteria, and he--,"

"I have work to do." Nancy cut him off, repeating herself. She opened the new chart, and was about to continue mark it up when his hand came down on top of it.

"At least hear me out Nan. I think this going out with this guy is a bad idea and--."

Nancy grabbed his wrist and lifted it off of the charts. "Quite frankly, I don't give a damn what you think right now because everything you've been saying has been filled with childlike insanity and petty jealousy." She took a deep breath. "If you want to check out some stuff for your case, there is a small memorial service for Dr. Millet and his wife upstairs in the main meeting hall. You'll probably be able to meet someone helpful there. Now I suggest you leave, because I do not want to deal with you right now."

Frank sighed and turned away, somewhat defeated, but formulating a new plan.

* * *

Nancy walked at the end of the service, with Tom's hand in the small of her back, guiding her through the sea of hospital workers who had come to learn more of his passing and pay their respects. She was a touched by the gesture, even though she wasn't that overcome with grief; Dr. Millet was someone she knew and worked with, but they weren't close. She opened her mouth to say something to him along those lines when she saw him coming through the crowd. _Not again._ "Frank get away from me." She spoke the moment he was in front of her. "I have nothing to say to you."

Frank frowned, fighting not to lose his temper in such a crowd. " Nancy I just need you to listen to me."

"You have nothing of value to say to me." Nancy quickly countered, grabbing Tom's hand. "Come on Tom, let's get out of here."

She started to walk away but Frank grabbed her hand, forcing her to stop. "Nancy just give me one minute and hear me out."

"Fine. One minute. Tom, I'll meet you downstairs." Nancy brought Frank over to a corner that the hospital employees seemed to be avoiding. "OK. You have one minute. Go."

Frank started by taking a deep breath. "Look, I overheard that guy up in the cafeteria, and he's up to something. I don't know what it is exactly, but it involves you."

"It's called dating Frank. We're going out, together, on a date." Nancy gave him a look that said he was wasting her time. "If that's all, I need to get going."

"No. Nan, it's more than that. He said something about finding out that you used to be a detective. I don't know why you were hiding it, but he knows, and he said that he's gonna take care of you tonight." Frank's tone softened a bit more. "It sounded like he was going to try and kill you. You can't go out with him tonight."

For the briefest of moments, Frank saw Nancy's eyes falter, but they hardened back just as quickly. "Whatever Frank. I'm a big girl, who can take care of herself. I can go out with who I want, and don't think some story you have is gonna change that." Once more she took off before Frank could get another word in.

* * *

Joe looked up from the magazine he was reading by Camilla's bedside when Frank entered the room. Camilla was sleeping peacefully still in the middle of her nap. He frowned when he saw the look on Frank's face. "What's wrong?"

"That…woman is impossible!" Frank practically spat the words out.

Joe jumped to his feet and pulled Frank out of the room so he wouldn't wake Camilla. "You mean Nancy?"

"Yes."

"What did she do this time? Is her hair purple?" Joe still had to tease his brother a little; it was in his nature, and despite the bruise, his brother still deserved it.

"No. She's still going on a date with that Tom guy."

Joe tsked. "And after how nicely you tried to woo her."

"She won't listen to a word of what I'm trying to tell her." Frank continued to rant.

Joe held up a finger. "That one might have to do with the fact that you basically called her a--,"

"I know what I did Joe. And, once again, you're not helping. I'm trying to warn her not put my foot further in my mouth."

Joe's expression turned serious. "What are you trying to warn her about?"

"I overheard that Tom guy in the cafeteria. He said that he knows she used to be a detective and he's going to take care of her tonight."

Joe's frown started to run very deep on his face. "Did he say anything else?"

"He mentioned something about her not being able to investigate something. Why?"

"Watch Camilla for me."

Joe started to take off down the hall towards the elevator bank. "Wait, Joe! Do you know something?" Frank shouted after his brother, but got no answer. He sighed, falling back and leaning against the wall. "Why do I get the feeling that I am missing something really important?"

* * *

OK, I promise the next chapter will be up a lot sooner than this one was.

Thoughts?


	6. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the characters associated with them, or any pop culture references I may choose to include.

Author's Notes: Thank you for your reviews. I'm glad that you all are supportive of this story. I especially appreciate all of the constructive reviews that I have been receiving, they really help motivate and encourage me.

_Italic are thoughts.

* * *

_

Chapter Five

Joe slapped his hands on the front desk as he reached it, slightly out of breath. In order to save time he had taken the stairs downstairs to the emergency room, and he had run. All in all, it was a wonderful experience that proved even though he was in shape, he was no longer seventeen.

"You again?" The voice that posed the question was incredulous and surprised.

Joe's blue eyes were brought up to focus on the same tired nurse he encountered the day before. He could just imagine the help she could be. "Yeah, it's me." He flashed her a little bit of his trademark smile. _Maybe some Hardy charm can soften her up a little._

Her dull eyes just bore into his. "What brings you here this time?"

_Or not. _"You can't by any chance point me in the direction of Dr. Drew, can you?" The nurse in fact did point, towards a large crowd. Joe looked, but couldn't make anything out in it besides a huddled mass of people. Normally he would have used her trademark strawberry blond locks to puck her out of the crowd, but the auburn blended too well with any dark color of hair. _Maybe Frank has a point. _"Do you think you could be a bit more specific please?"

"The door."

"She's at the door?"

"No. By now she's out the door. Probably out of the parking garage too. She left about ten minutes ago."

Joe thought for a moment. This wasn't going to make things easier. But he knew there was always the option of preventing her date from meeting her altogether, which as he thought was looking better and better by every second. "What about Dr…" He trailed off, waiting until the name came to him. "Phillips. Can you tell me where Dr. Phillips is?"

"It's within my capabilities as a human."

"Will you tell me where Dr. Phillips is?" Joe tried again, reminded of a grade-school teacher who had been a stickler for grammar; he had never been a fan of that particular teacher.

"Well, he left with Dr. Drew. To the best of my knowledge they are together. And if that kiss this morning was any indication, they're going on a date."

"Do you know where they were going?"

"I might have heard them say something about going out to dinner. Probably a restaurant."

Joe took a deep breath to calm himself at this point. He really didn't have time for this. He was also fairly confident that he didn't have the time to search every single restaurant in the city due to the fact that he knew that would be a large amount of restaurants. "You didn't hear them say anything about a specific restaurant? Or a type of restaurant at least?"

"Sorry. I'm afraid I was busy working. Which I have to get back to."

The nurse turned away, and Joe started to walk away, berating himself for not getting anyway to contact Nancy from her. He sighed and decided to head back upstairs; there was no use running all over an unfamiliar city no matter how much he needed to find Nancy. It would be quite a fruitless search. He figure at this point he might as well go upstairs, make sure Camilla was set for the night, and then he would figure out something that he could tell Frank.

* * *

"Uncle Frank?"

Frank turned at the voice of his young niece. She had woken up a few minutes before, but had been content looking at the colorful painting on the wall in silence, so they had been sitting in a silence. "Yeah Cami?"

"Where's daddy?"

It was quite a simple question, but Frank had no idea how to answer it. His brother had just run off. He did have a rough idea of course, but that wouldn't be easily explained to a four year old. "He went to go find somebody."

Sparkling green eyes widened in excitement. "Is he getting that nice lady? Dr. Drew?"

Frank resisted a sigh at this. "Why would you think that?"

"Daddy said that you, him, and her used to be good friends. 'Specially you and her." Cami informed

"Did he now?"

"Uh-huh." She nodded quickly. "He said that you two were like…" She fumbled with her hands for a moment before holding one hand up with her index and middle finger interwoven. "This."

Frank found himself briefly thinking of a different hand gesture that described their current relationship perfectly. "What else did he say?"

"That he'd bring her to see me."

"Well, we'll see."

"I bet that's where he went." She paused thinking for a moment. "Uncle Frank?"

"Yeah Cami?"

"Will you tell me a story?"

Frank gave small smile at this; this was much more familiar uncle territory for him. "Where are you in Princess Bride?"

Camilla shook her head. "That's daddy's story. You have to tell a different one. A new one."

_Damn._ "OK…uh…A long, long time ago… there was a beautiful Princess named... Natalya. She lived with her father, the King of the Royal Courts, and her housekeeper."

"It's not a housekeeper it's a servant, silly." Camilla corrected.

"Sorry." Frank quickly apologized, then continued. "Natalya wasn't like other princesses. She liked to go out and help people by finding out the reasons behind their problems. A lot of the time she would help these people with two knights."

Camilla interrupted once more. "What were their names?"

"Um…Joshua and…" Frank struggled for a moment on the other name. "Fergus. Natalya would…work very closely with Fergus and Joshua, and together they would be able to stop many sorts of injustices that occurred in the many kingdoms that they traveled to. Natalya and Fergus were very close, and a lot of people used to say that they were in love. Fergus secretly agreed with this, but he knew that he could never be with Natalya, because she had promised to be with Nathanial, the Prince of Emerson.

"At one point the three were nearly inseparable, and almost always did their work together. But eventually that changed when Natalya went back to her home to visit her father. She never returned to work with the two knights and she never contacted them. They worked alone for ten years hoping they might find her one day."

"Did they?"

"They did." Frank nodded grimly. "But they soon found that she was different. Instead of going to different kingdoms to help people, Natalya had fully accepted her place as royalty. She was also very secretive, and she and Fergus didn't get along anymore. They were always fighting, and Fergus said things that he shouldn't have, which made her really mad.

"Natalya had plans to attend a small royal dinner at the castle of a visiting prince. Fergus overheard this prince talking to one of his…attendants that he was planning on locking Natalya into his castle and keeping her forever to be his wife and queen."

Cami gasped. "What did he do?"

"Well he tried to warn Natalya, but she was still so mad at him because of things that he said, that she didn't listen to him and she decided to go anyways."

"What happened then? Do Joshua and Fergus go to rescue her?"

"You can find out tomorrow." Joe's voice came from the doorway. "It's time for bed."

"But daddy, it was just getting to the good part."

"I know." Joe smiled. "But you need to rest. Uncle Frank will tell you more of the story tomorrow night."

Camilla sighed . "OK."

* * *

Despite everything on his mind, Joe couldn't help but grin as they exited the hospital about an hour later after Camilla had gone through every bedtime ritual she could think of in the hopes of extracting more of Frank's story out of him, only to get a bit more of Princess Bride. "So Fergus, when were you planning on telling me that we were knights?"

"Joe…" Frank trailed off. If possible he was more tired than he had been at the beginning of the day, and he knew that was saying something.

"Sorry, I'm afraid that my name Joshua, Fergus."

"Are you going to be throwing this in my face for a long time?"

"Just until we get back to the hotel."

"We can't go back to the hotel. What about Nancy?"

"You mean Princess Natalya?" Joe sighed reminded of the problem. "There's nothing we can do."

"There has to be something. We can't just let that guy--,"

"First of all, you're dead on your feet. Second, what do you want to do? Go out and search every single restaurant in the city?"

"Well it's a start. And while we're at it you can tell me what you know about what's going on. I know you know more than I do."

"No. We're going back to the hotel and you are getting some rest." Joe put on his stern father voice "End of discussion."

* * *

"I'm sorry about that." Tom apologized returning to the table where Nancy sat, quietly eating her dessert.

Nancy shook her head, partially to wave off his apology, and partially to shake the nagging feeling in the back of her mind. "No, it's fine."

"I'm afraid that I'm not going to be able to finish the evening with you. That was the hospital."

"Is everything alright?"

"It's just a patient of mine that I asked them to page me if anything changed." Tom started to pull his credit card out. "I have to go check it out. I'll pay on my way out. You should stay and enjoy the rest of your dessert."

"Are you sure? I can give you a ride back to hospital. We did take my car." Nancy stood as he did.

Tom waved her off. "No. You stay and finish. I'll take a cab." He leaned over and kissed her shortly, but similarly to the kiss they had shared in the emergency room earlier that day. "I'll see you soon."

"Well, we do work together." Nancy fought a frown off at the odd statement. "So I'll see you then."

"Maybe even sooner." Tom turned before Nancy could say anything.

She sat back down, bewildered, with the nagging feeling coming back a bit stronger. _Maybe I should…No. Don't be ridiculous, Drew. It's just first date awkwardness._ It took her a moment more, but once again she talked herself out of the mood as she finished her dessert.

As she left the restaurant, she checked to make sure that Tom had covered everything, found that he had, and continued on her way, driving in a silence until she reached her apartment building, which was bathed in darkness.

"Evening Nancy." The night doorman greeted with a smile on his face.

"Evening Roger." Nancy returned the smile.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm great." Nancy quickly answered. "How are you?"

"I'm fine." He opened the door for her. "The power in the building's out. Be careful on your way up. And get some rest."

"I will. Thanks Roger."

Nancy made her way up to her apartment slowly, using the emergency lights as her guide. As she got to her door though, she realized that it was ajar. She perked up, stepping forward quietly, and then pushing it further slowly. As more of her apartment, bathed in moonlight, became visible she saw that it was empty, and nothing was out of place. _Relax. Frank has got you paranoid. You were rushing this morning, you probably just didn't close it._

She knew the action wasn't like her, but it was the best explanation she could come up when the apartment was empty and she didn't want to deal with the other possible explanations of everything. She sighed and stepped into the apartment tossing her bag onto the kitchen table cluttered with mail. Using one foot she kicked the door closed gently.

No sooner had she done this did she feel a blinding pain in the back of her skull. Her knees buckled beneath her, and she fought to hang on to consciousness. However it was a quick fight, which she most definitely lost as her world went completely black.

* * *

Joe would have thought that by now the floor would have fallen through due to the extreme amount of pacing that had occurred. Frank was asleep on the bed, and had been for quite a while. Joe however, couldn't sleep. He was far too concerned about what could possibly be going on with Nancy. _Why didn't I get her number?_

He exhaled loudly falling into the chair next to the small desk. There was always the possibility that Frank had been completely wrong about what he had heard and Nancy was perfectly safe. here was always the possibility that Frank had been completely wrong about what he had heard and Nancy was perfectly safe. _Yeah right. And he's Sir Fergus of Bayport._

Dejectedly, he shoved his hand in his pocket, only for it to come in contact with a crumpled slip of paper. He pulled it out, curious as to what it was. As he read, his eyes lit up and he quickly pulled out his cell phone. _How did I forget this?_

"Hello?" A tired, yet extremely feminine voice answered.

"Bess? Is that you?" Joe asked excitedly.

"Joe?"

"Yeah."

"Is it in the detective code or something to call in the middle of the night and wake me up?"

"What?"

"Nothing." Her voice gained a lot of energy very quickly. "How are you? When Nancy called me yesterday and told me that you were in Port Winston, I couldn't believe it. We haven't heard from you in forever. She told me you're still solving mysteries with Frank, and that you have a daughter, who just sounds adorable by the way. But that's it, and I need more details. So dish. Spill. Oh yeah, she also told me how you two were just as cute as ever. So tell me, how have you maintained those hunkishly good looks?"

"Bess, as much as I would love to do the whole catch up thing with you right now I really need some help."

"From me? All the way back in River Heights? Ooh, is this about setting Nancy and Frank up? Because I totally already gave her plan. Don't tell me she didn't follow it. That girl seriously has to learn."

Joe wisely decided not to tell her that Nancy had gone out on a date with a different guy. "No. I just need to be able to contact her. The sooner the better."

"Is something wrong? Should I be worried?"

"I don't know. I just need to be able to talk to her."

"Well she's really unreliable with her cell phone, and her land number just changed and I have no idea where I put that."

"What about her pager?"

"She has a pager?"

_I guess that answers that question._ "OK. What about her address? I really need to talk to her."

"Oh that's right over here. Hold on one sec…"

* * *

Thoughts? 


	7. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the characters associated with them, or any pop culture references I may choose to include.

Author's Notes: Thank you for your reviews. I'm glad that you all are supportive of this story. I especially appreciate all of the constructive reviews that I have been receiving, they really help motivate and encourage me.

I am so sorry about the delay that I promised wouldn't happen again. To make up for it, I bring you the double update.

For the purposes of this chapter, the people in Nancy's apartment building are very sound sleepers.

**Warning**: One could say that this chapter delves into content that is a bit more adult. This is situational mostly but may also contain some language.

_Italics are thoughts.

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_

Chapter Six

When Nancy regained consciousness, it took her a moment to realize that she had in fact, lost consciousness. All of the signs were there; a throbbing headache and slight nausea were the first things that she noticed. However when she awoke she was lying on her bed with her blankets and sheets tangled at her feet as they were every morning, and she heard a soft music was playing from her clock radio. It took some time for her to register that there was no light coming from the windows, and she was still in her work clothing. It was then that she remembered that she hadn't made the bed that morning, and the events leading to her blackout came rushing back to her. She had been hit over the head.

At that moment Nancy decided to sit up as quickly as possible, which didn't quite work. First of all, the quick movements brought on a wave of dizziness. Second, she was snapped right back down to the bed by a tug at her wrists. "Oh damn." She muttered under her breath.

A low, decidedly male chuckle entered her ears, alerting her to another presence. "Sorry about the cuffs, Nance."

Nancy allowed her head to fall to the side so she was staring at the man sitting next to her bed. "Tom? What are you…" Nancy trailed off as realization dawned on her. _Frank was right. Damn._

"Doing?" Tom finished with a slight grin that quickly faded as he continued with his next sentence. "I'm just taking care of business. You know, getting rid of you, but first doing what I will with you…the usual."

"And the handcuffs? Are they part of the usual?" Nancy chose to remain casual if not slightly sardonic, until she could get a better read on the situation.

Tom got out of his chair. "Actually those are special for you. I anticipated quite a bit of work with you and I didn't want to risk any issues. According to my sources, you're a feisty one."

"What exactly do you have planned that requires such…restraints?"

"Well, I'd like to start by getting some information."

"Such as?"

"How long have you been investigating me?"

Nancy swallowed. It was very unfortunate, and extremely bad, that he had already figured that out. She then started her unconvincing argument. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a d--,"

"Detective." Tom cut her off, sitting next to her on the bed. "Yeah. I know about that. I found out last night as a matter of fact. And then I had my sources look you up and we found out that you work for that insipid O'Neil." He paused, but didn't give her time to speak. "You know, Dr. Millet is the one who actually told me that you were a detective. And he found out from your little detective friends that he hired." Tom seemed to take great pleasure in telling her this.

Nancy both inwardly cursed and smiled. Frank had been right; Tom did know that she was a detective. Granted it was entirely his fault that Tom knew, but still…he had been right. On the other hand, Tom was showing much more of his hand than he needed to, giving Nancy a lot more material to stall with. "When did you talk to Dr. Millet?" She asked carefully, hoping it wouldn't completely tip him off.

"I paid him a little visit last night." Tom seemed more eager to tell more on the subject than put off, which convinced Nancy to continue on that line of conversation.

"And you killed him."

"You catch on quick. O'Neil taught you well."

Nancy ignored the comment. "Why?"

"You should know that you were doing a very good job maintaining your cover. I went to his home last night thinking that he was O'Neil's plant. When he told me about you I knew that he wasn't, but I decided to use him as…target practice."

_That's one mystery solved. You can thank me later Hardy._ Nancy began to frown a bit more as it became more apparent that Tom was quite serious. "And is that what's going to happen to me?"

"No. I have better things planned for you." Tom's little smirk returned. "Besides, target practice would mar that body and face."

"And what do you have planned for me?" Nancy continued to ask questions. It wasn't getting her any closer to escaping, but it seemed to be keeping Tom from doing anything, and he wasn't finding any information that he didn't already know.

Tom moved once again so he was leaning down over her. "Well, I'm curious. O'Neil told you to go out with me, didn't he?"

"Yes." At this point, she knew that she might as well just tell him. He clearly knew and was only looking for clarification.

"He wanted you to get close to me, right? Become one of my closest confidantes?"

"And you were willing to do this?" With each question he got a little closer to Nancy.

Nancy refused to flinch as his hot breath made contact with her skin. She looked him in the eye with her own steely gaze. "I went on the date, didn't I?"

"Yes…yes you did. And you were very friendly with those kisses. Now I'm curious. How far were you going to go?" He again paused without giving her the time to answer. "Were you going to sleep with me? Were you going to do anything that it took if it meant that you were completing your mission?" He watched her reaction carefully. He placed both hands firmly on the bed, at either side of her head, his own head lowered to the point where his lips brushed against her ear as he spoke in a low whisper. " You were going to, weren't you? You know, normally, I'll only sleep with the girls who I know, know nothing. The cheap ones, you know? But since I hate to disappoint any whore…especially one with your face…I think I'll make an exception." At the end of the sentence his lips found her to crush in a bruising kiss.

In a series of movements, Nancy bit down on his tongue that had snaked its way into her mouth and brought her knees up into his chest, forcing him to back away from her.

"You little--," Tom was cut off by a loud crash in the living room. "Wait here." He turned and left the room.

The second he was gone Nancy began to attempt and pull her hands through the handcuffs with little success. As she worked she could hear various crashes and grunts that ensured her that not only was someone fighting with Tom, but they were destroying her apartment in the process. As the fight continued her curiosity got stronger and her progress in freeing herself only seemed to worsen. Finally there was a thud, and then silence.

Nancy stopped her struggles, waiting for the victor of the fight to appear. It only took a moment before he stood in the doorway, sporting a split lip, but otherwise looking no worse for the wear. "Well…can't say that this is what I expected to see when I came in here."

She rolled her eyes at her rescuer's smirk. "You know, I'm going to get enough of that from your brother once he gets wind of this, so if you could just help me out of these cuffs…"

"But of course." Joe Hardy entered the room, looking over the captive doctor. "What happened?"

"My prince of a date knocked me out and chained me to the bed."

"The guy out cold on your living room floor? I knew there was a reason I didn't like him."

"Other than the fact that I was assigned to monitor his illegal activities?"

"Well…there is that." Joe glanced around. "Got anything I can use to get you out of those?"

"There should be some bobby pins on my dresser."

Joe turned and went towards said item of furniture. "So are you OK?" he asked quietly, searching the top of the dresser's cluttered contents.

"I might have a concussion." Nancy reviewed her symptoms mentally. "And my arms are falling asleep."

"I'm working on it." Joe stopped his search as his cell phone rang. "Bet it's Frank." He pulled the phone out of his pocket. "Hello…Hi Frank…" He turned and winked at Nancy before once more returning to his search. "I'm with Nancy…Yeah, she's fine…At her apartment…Well I wasn't exactly invited, I just surprised her…Yes, in the middle of the night…I'm not hiding anything from you…Can you talk to Nancy?..." Joe turned to see Nancy shake her head. "No, you can't talk to Nancy…She's a little tied up right now and I really have to go take care of that." Joe's hand clasped around a hairpin and he turned once more to walk towards Nancy. "Get some rest Frank…Yes, I'll be getting rest too…Goodbye Frank."

"What was that all about?" Nancy asked as Joe started work on one of her wrists.

Joe quickly searched the cuff for the keyhole before starting his work. "I only figured out where you were after Frank fell asleep, and I didn't wake him before I left due to the fact that you two don't know how to get along with each other and I really wanted to mess with him some more."

"Mess with him?"

"Yeah. Somehow he got in his head that you and I are having some sort of torrid love affair. From what I can tell it's pretty easy to get him all riled up."

"How did he get that idea?"

"You're asking me to tell you how my brother's mind works?"

"Well it probably spouted from the fact that I just 'give myself away to no one special'."

Joe frowned. "You didn't actually listen to that crap from my brother did you?"

"Well not exactly…" _Tom just fed it to me too._

"You just quoted him."

"It's been playing in my head all day." Nancy sighed in defeat.

"Nancy…" Joe gently chastised, lowering her newly freed hand down to the bed and then going to the other side to work there.

"He's right Joe. I hit him because I was mad that he said it, but it's true." Her head swiveled to follow him. "Before I went to school I had only kissed a handful of people and I had relationships with all of them. Now if it's for a case, I'll flirt with and kiss anyone."

"You didn't have a relationship with my brother."

"What?"

"Well, you've kissed Frank haven't you?"

"We were pretending to be married."

"Not at that ski lodge you weren't."

"How did you--,"

"You expected Bess to keep her mouth shut?"

_I knew I shouldn't have told her._ "You are not helping."

"Well maybe the reason Frank's going all crazy is because of the fact that he's jealous. He hasn't gotten the relationship with you…"

"You've been talking to Bess haven't you?"

"Well, it's a very plausible theory." Joe paused, sighing. "Nance, I think that you can't take anything that Frank is saying very seriously right now. I'm no doctor but I think that somewhere in the course of seeing you again he's had some sort of psychotic break. He's become very obsessed with hair. Yours in particular."

"Well that's because her hair is very nice." Two heads snapped in the direction of the doorway. They found the source of the voice to be a revived Tom, holding a gun. "I'm very sorry to breakup the Oprah moment but I have to teach Mr. Hardy a few things about subduing an enemy and then you and I have some unfinished work to attend to."

* * *

_This is ridiculous._ Nancy stood from her bed in the Emergency room of the hospital where she normally worked but was currently a patient, and went over to a storage cabinet. She was tired of waiting.

"Nancy, I don't think that you're supposed to be up." Joe reprimanded from his own bed. He was lying there patiently reviewing the night's events. "I believe the doctor's exact words were, 'stay in bed and rest until the test results come back for both of you. That means no working Dr. Drew.'"

"That wasn't a doctor it was a third year medical student." Nancy quickly corrected. And we're waiting for nothing. You have a bruise."

"More than one." Joe winced, thinking back on the fights he had participated in at Nancy's apartment. "And some small cuts."

Nancy rolled her eyes. "In any case they're minor and you don't have to be here." She turned back holding an ace bandage and a box of band aids. She tossed the band aids to him. "Here. I give you full permission to patch yourself up." She then sat and removed an ice pack from her wrist, beginning the process of wrapping it.

Joe watched as she worked. He had to admit it was a little concerning to see her act so naturally after everything that had happened that night; even he had been shaken up by it and planned on spending a good long time with Camilla when she was released later that day. "Nance, don't you think that you should take it easy? Take the day off and recover?" He asked the question carefully, knowing that he was probably treading in dangerous territory, and he definitely didn't want to set her off. During the second round with Tom he had seen what she was capable of and he did not want to be on the receiving end of it.

"Why?"

"Well…it was a long night." _And you killed that guy. Let's start with that._ "You fought a lot, and got hit over the head…" He treaded lightly avoiding the topic of how she had shot Tom when Tom was in fact about to shoot him. He had never thought of Nancy as someone who could kill, let alone as someone who would own a gun. Joe also knew that Nancy clearly hadn't thought that much about it either; for a few moments directly after the shot was fired he had seen a mixture of horror and other emotions on her face that seemed to turn into a hardened gaze the second O'Neil and his men had burst through the door. It was for that reason that he knew the evening was affecting her more than she was about to admit. "You don't think that you could just take a break for one day? Even O'Neil said you should think about it."

Nancy sighed. "Joe, I don't think that me taking the day off is going to help anyone. Especially my patients." She paused, putting a smile on her face. "Besides, you should be thinking about yourself and your family. Camilla gets released today. Why don't you focus on how you're going to spoil her while she finishes recovering, while I go get some forms to get us out of here?"

She left the room quickly before Joe could say anything. "OK…so I take it that means you don't want to talk about it."

* * *

Leave yourthoughts here or just go on to the next chapter. 


	8. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the characters associated with them, or any pop culture references I may choose to include.

Author's Notes: Thank you for your reviews. I'm glad that you all are supportive of this story. I especially appreciate all of the constructive reviews that I have been receiving, they really help motivate and encourage me.

_Italics are thoughts.

* * *

_

Chapter Seven

"Let me make sure I've got all this." Frank spoke as he and Joe stepped into the empty elevator on their way up to get Camilla. "This Tom guy, knocked Nancy out, and handcuffed her to a bed. Then you showed up and knocked him out. You were getting Nancy out of the cuffs, when he showed up again, with a gun that you forgot to search him for. You then decided to fight him, even though he had the advantage, and somehow the fight got into the living room, leaving Nancy to find a way out of the remaining handcuff without the hair thing you were using because you dropped it in your rush to take out Tom. You and Tom switched to a fist fight when you knocked the gun out of his hands, and meanwhile Nancy gets so frustrated trying to get her hand free that she just pulled the bar that she's chained to out of the back of her bed, which is how she sprained her wrist. Tom regained the gun, and was about to kill you, when Nancy came out and shot him, with her own gun that she keeps hidden in her bathroom. Is that it?"

Joe sighed dreading the next question. "Yeah. That's pretty much the gist of it."

"Can I ask why this all happened?"

"You can ask. I just can't answer."

"And why not?"

"Well I don't know the entire story either." It wasn't exactly a lie. Joe did not know everything about the events that had been occurring. He did know a lot more than Frank, but he didn't know everything.

"Bull." Frank snapped a little as the elevator doors opened. "You know more than you'll tell me."

Joe hated the way that his brother could read him sometimes. "That's because it's not my place to tell you. If you want answers then you have to go somewhere else."

"And where do you suggest I go?"

"The other party involved in last night's incident would be a good option. She's working downstairs." Joe started to smile as they neared Camilla's room. Maybe he could twist everything into working out wonderfully; Frank and Nancy would be friends again once Frank got the whole story, he could get some peace with his daughter, and then after everyone had had their fill of those particular notions he and Bess could play matchmaker.

Frank nodded. "That's a good idea." He agreed. "I need to talk to her about why she didn't listen to me in the first place." He turned and started back to the elevators.

_Oh crap. _"Uh…Frank? That's not what I meant!"

* * *

Frank had been in the Emergency Room for ten minutes but hadn't spoken to Nancy. He couldn't find her, and he didn't know where to look. Joe, though reluctant to give information about why he had been so worried, had told him all about the nurse at the front desk and Frank knew that he really didn't want to deal with her. Instead he decided to wander aimlessly, eventually he would have to run into her; she couldn't hide from him forever.

His plan however, was foiled, when he ran into someone. "Sorry." He quickly apologized, intent on continuing.

"Can I help you?"

Glancing at the petite woman up and down he realized that she worked at the hospital, and decided that he might as well ask if she knew where Nancy was. "I'm looking for Dr. Drew. Could you tell me where she is?"

"Oh, she's working on a patient right now. Is there anything I can help you with? My name's Margie. I work with Dr. Drew a lot." She held out her hand with a smile on her face.

"Well, I just really need to talk to her." Frank shook her hand.

"Are you a friend of hers?"

"Yeah."

"Well she should be out soon. You can wait right over there." Margie pointed to a couple of chairs. "Could you try and convince her to take the day off? She had a long night and we're all pretty worried about her."

"I, uh…I guess."

"Great." Margie bubbled. "Oh. There she is." She pointed towards a door that was swinging open and Nancy appeared, exiting with a tired look on her face. Her hair, which was still dark, Frank noted grimly, was up, pinned in some sort of bun that he couldn't recognize, and she had one wrist wrapped in a brace.

"Thanks." He muttered before hurrying over to her. "Nancy, can we talk?" He started quickly, in the hopes that maybe she wouldn't shut him down if he could start before she noticed him.

No such luck. "No." She continued her brisk walk.

"Why not?" He simply followed her. He wasn't about to give up as easily as she wanted him to, even if it meant causing another scene, finding embarrassment in the emergency room once more and probably getting punched in the eye again.

"Because now is not the time for an 'I told you so.'"

_OK. She so called you on that one Frank._ When he learned that she knew of his ultimate plan it annoyed him. She wasn't supposed to be able to tell these things anymore. She wasn't a detective. She was a doctor. Doctors weren't supposed to be able to just know what somebody was going to do without hardly glancing at them. And she most certainly wasn't supposed to be able to. Not when they did not have the connection that allowed them to read each other so well. At least, Frank couldn't see the connection anymore. Nancy was too far changed. "Well too bad. I warned you about that guy Nance. I told you he was bad news. If you had just listened to me--."

"If I had just listened to you what would have happened?" Nancy whirled around quickly, with a look in her eyes that to Frank was even scarier than the one he had seen the day before. "You would have apologized and everything would be perfect between us because you would realize that maybe some of the old Nancy was still in me and the old Hardy charm might still work to convince me to give up everything I've worked for and return to my old life? And then I would join the agency and you'd change the name to Hardy, Hardy, and Drew? What would happen next? Would we be working a case and get stranded alone in some terrible situation, yet somehow it would turn romantic and we'd finally get together because of it? Is that what would have happened if I had just listened to you, Frank? Would everything returned to the way you want it to be if I had listened to you?

"I have a bit of a newsflash for you Hardy. It's been ten years. We aren't teenagers anymore, and you're stuck on fantasies that you created back when we were, because you somehow managed to make it through the gates into the adult world without changing very much. Well I didn't. I found a different job, that I like a lot. It's a lot of hard work, but I'm helping people, and I'm really sorry that you can't see that it's not so bad to do something else. I want to be friends with you Frank but you have to get over the fact that it's not going to be the same as it was when we were eighteen. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm working."

Frank was speechless as she turned again and left, walking towards the crowded waiting room. He couldn't believe everything that she had just said…especially how spot on she was about the whole thing. She was right. He hadn't changed at all. He was still the eighteen year old amateur detective, trapped in a twenty-eight year old private detective's body. He could barely stop thinking about it, and how unfair it was that she could see it when he couldn't.

_OK. Maybe I owe her an apology. _He sighed as he heard her voice, suddenly a lot softer and more caring, straining over the crowd.

"I'm very sorry to tell you this Mr. Harper, but your daughter's injuries were very severe. We exercised every option that we had but there was nothing that we could do. I'm very sorry for your loss."

_Make that a big apology._ Frank watched as she spoke for a few moments more with the man she was talking to before turning and speaking with a nurse at the front desk that she would be going home, and then something about it being what everybody wanted her to do anyway. She then entered a door that, if he remembered correctly was the locker room. Without a thought, Frank followed her in determined to extract his foot from his mouth. He found her leaning up against a row of lockers with her non-injured hand up against her face, but it quickly flew down when she heard him come in.

"Frank, you're not supposed to be in here. And furthermore with the way you're following me I have every right to have security come down and get you. I don't want to talk to you."

"I know." Frank stepped a bit further into the room. "But I really need to apologize to you." After he said this, he wondered briefly if the look of shock on Nancy's face would be permanently stuck there if she didn't feel a different emotion soon. "I should have given this whole medical thing a chance…I should have given you a chance. I was really a--."

"Bastard?"

"I was going to go for jerk. But that works too." Frank nodded, suddenly finding himself in agreement with every assessment that Nancy provided. "I'm sorry. I should have just accepted that you were doing something different."

Nancy gave him a brief moment of silence before responding. "It's alright. I was mad, and a little upset, but it wasn't entirely your fault."

"It wasn't?"

"A lot of things changed for you. Your younger brother had a child. It's not unnatural that you would want to hang on to something completely constant." Nancy informed. "In this case, me, and your relationship with me." She smiled, giving him his first genuine Nancy smile in quite a bit of time, at the look of confusion on his face. "I did a rotation in psychiatrics."

"So now I'm insane?" Frank reacted a little defensively at the suggestion she had just offered.

Nancy frowned again. _It's going to take some getting used to, Drew. Don't jump down his throat. He did apologize._ "I didn't say that Frank. I said it was perfectly normal." She paused. "But there is another factor that probably led to us not, playing nice, as Bess put it. I haven't been completely honest with you." She took a deep breath knowing there was no turning back now. _It's not like he wasn't going to find out eventually._ "I haven't exactly quit detective work."

"And I'm guessing this has to do with why Tom tried to kill you."

"Yeah."

There was a silence that Frank did not want to sit in. Especially when he was finally about to get some answers. "So what exactly is it that you do? You can't just go undercover in the medical field."

"I'm getting there." Nancy assured. "I'm just trying to figure out how to word it." There was another short pause. "OK. You remember the Network right?" She sat down on a bench in between the rows of lockers and encouraged Frank to do the same.

"How could I forget?" He took a seat. "I only had most of my near death experiences on those cases."

"When I came back from my freshman year of school I was recruited by an agency like the Network called, interestingly enough, the Agency."

"I've never heard of it."

"Yeah, and how many people have heard of the Network?"

"Point taken."

"I took on training with them, as well as school, and when I decided to go into medicine, they gave me my first…and so far only case. The Agency specializes in major crime families and they plant agents to monitor and eventually take them down. Tom was the son of the head of one of these families, and we had determined that one day he was going to take over. Tom was also planning on working in medicine in the meantime. It was my job to be friends with him, eventually become more than friends, so by the time he did take over I would be one of his most trusted confidantes, and it would be easy to get the evidence needed to take them down."

"And that's why you said he was no one special yesterday." Realization dawned on Frank, and he felt like even more of a jerk for saying what he had.

"Yeah." Nancy nodded awkwardly. "It was all part of my assignment."

"How was it supposed to work? You used your real name. All you did was dye your hair. Any serious criminal would easily see past that."

"The Agency, while very secretive, doesn't like its agents to have to live a separate life for however long their case takes. Instead you tread a long route of creating a different lifestyle for yourself. I hadn't solved a case since the car accident anyways, so I was pretty far off the criminal radar to begin with. It wasn't that important to hide my past because I hadn't done anything in so long and I wasn't jumping right into Tom's life. I was easing my way into it. I met him during our last year as med students, and we slowly became good friends after that. It wasn't until yesterday that I made the move needed to become more than friends. There was no reason for him to even suspect that I was anything but a doctor.

"Unfortunately, he somehow learned about my past and decided to check up on me." Nancy chose to leave out the part about how that information had come from Frank. She figured that he probably now had a lot more on his mind and she didn't need to worry him about that. "He knew what I was up to before that kiss you saw."

"Hence the fight at your apartment that you dragged my brother into."

"I didn't drag him into anything. He decided that he wanted to be the knight in shining armor for this one. I should be thanking him."

"And I should be thanking you."

"Why?"

"Because you saved his life when you…"

"Shot Tom? You can say it Frank. I know what I did." She exhaled deeply. "And anytime. Saving people is my job." There was another long, awkward silence. There was still quite a bit to work through between them. "So…I just took the rest of the day off, and Joe's with Camilla. What do you say we try the whole eating together thing one more time and I give you a tour of the city?"

* * *

They left the building and entered the parking garage together a few minutes later, with Nancy in the lead once more, leading Frank to her car. Frank was following, watching as the dark hair thatshe had let down swished from side to side with eachstep; it still wasn't growingon him."So not to drudge up any bad memories or anything but how's the eye?"

As Frank answered she took out her keys and pressed the button that would unlock the doors; they were crossing the road to the side where her Jeep awaited. "It's OK. You have one hell of a --." He was cut off by a loud explosion and Nancy's body colliding into his, sending them both to the ground. "Hook…" He finished his sentence in a hushed tone tilting his head up to see a flaming wreckage that he could only assume had just been Nancy's car.

* * *

Thoughts? 


	9. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the characters associated with them, or any pop culture references I may choose to include.

Author's Notes: Thank you so much for all the reviews. Everything that you mention in them really helps me in developing my writing and knowing what's working for the story and what needs help, and without you guys I would be a lot more lost in what I'm writing.

I'm sorry to say that this won't be a double update, but it is quite a bit faster than the last one was, and I'm hoping to keep up this faster pattern. Besides, I wouldn't want to spoil you too much.

_Italics are thoughts._

_**Bold italics are transmissions over a radio.

* * *

**_

Chapter Eight

Nancy didn't bother to move from her position of lying half on top of Frank as her vehicle burned. She had not anticipated such an explosion, and it was a bit disconcerting. Her case was over, the criminal dead. Nobody should have been blowing up her car. As a general rule, exploding cars weren't good, and this didn't bode well with her.

"Are you OK?"

She heard Frank ask the question immediately, but it took a moment for her to answer. She had to work the strength back into her voice that had fled when the car had been engulfed. "Yeah." She gulped. "Fine. You?"

"Well…" Frank hesitated wondering if he should even go where he was thinking. After all, the woman lying on top of him's car had just been detonated, and going into the physical positions of where they had ended up seemed a bit insensitive and unimportant. Although it was going to be very distracting if it remained this way. "You're kind of on top." He got the sentence out, and just as soon realized his mistake. "Of me. You're on top of me."

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Nancy slid off his form before sitting up. Now she could clearly see the burning car, but wasn't the least bit mesmerized by the dancing flames. She turned to Frank who now was also sitting up. "If you're fine, we should get out of here." They both stood. "That fire needs to go out, and I need to call my boss at the Agency and find out what's going on."

Frank stood in one place, slightly dumfounded as she went into business mode, moving quickly and hurrying back to the doorway that they had gone through to enter the garage, where there was a payphone. _She's in control of the situation, that's for sure_. Shaking his head he took off after her. "I could be wrong, but I'd say that somebody wanted you to be in that car when it went off."

"And I here I thought all those nice car bombs were around just for decoration." She was a little irritated at the whole situation now, quickly going through the stages of grief that came with losing her car. Her relatively new car. She sighed, realizing how sarcastic, and callous she had just sounded. "I'm sorry." _You really don't need to alienate yourself again, Drew._ "Do me a favor, and don't tell Joe I said that?" _And I really don't need to get the other brother upset. _

She didn't realize that Frank didn't even plan on telling Joe about the car bomb to begin with. He knew enough to know that the reminder of the way one of Joe's first girlfriends had died would be enough to put his brother in a funk for days, and all of the parties (aside from the car) involved were fine. There was no need to do that to him. "No problem." He glanced at the phone that she was picking up, while thumbing through her pockets for change. "Who are you going to call?"

"My boss O'Neil. You have your cell phone with you right?" Frank nodded in response to the question. "Can you call the fire department?"

"Yeah."

As he pulled his phone, Nancy inserted the coins into the payphone and dialed a long, but memorized number.

"Stain Agents Dry-cleaning."

"This is Nancy Drew, I have an item that you recently worked with that seems to have… spontaneously combusted."

"Hold on one moment Ms. Drew, I'll pass you on to our manager."

As a slow and boring orchestral number came over the line signifying her to wait while the call was passed on, she sighed at the code they used for cover. Dry-Cleaning. She had thought about when she had first learned of it, and it did make sense in a twisted sort of way, but that was a completely different matter than what she called for.

The music suddenly cut out and a hard voice replaced it. "What seems to be the problem Ms. Drew?"

She didn't leave the code, as was the rules. Even though they probably were on a secure line, and the only one near her was Frank, who knew, you could never be too careful in the eyes of the Agency. "I left the coat that you recently cleaned in my vehicle, and it appears to have exploded."

"Was anyone hurt during this incident?"

"No."

"And are emergency services on their way?"

"The fire department is being called as we speak."

"So others witnessed this incident?"

"Just one other, sir. Frank Hardy."

"The brother of the Hardy that you brought with you when you picked up that coat?"

"That's the one."

"OK then Ms. Drew. I will send my personal driver to pick you and Mr. Hardy up at the coffee shop down the road, shortly to bring you on a tour of the facilities as part of our most humble apologies. Until then I recommend that you make yourself very scarce, and remain away from any location near the site of the incident, without drawing any attention to yourself."

"Thank you sir."

"I also recommend that you call Mr. Hardy's brother and check in with him to make sure that all of his belongings are secure. I believe that your issues with your dirty laundry are far from over, and we'd like to bring him to our facilities as well."

"I'll do that sir."

"I'll be sure to greet you upon your arrival."

Nancy hung up when she heard the click on his end, and look to Frank who was also hanging up. "Fire department's on their way." He announced.

"Good. Let's go." Nancy grabbed his hand and began leading them out of the garage on foot. "O'Neil's sending someone to pick us up. You need to call Joe."

* * *

Frank looked at Nancy as they sat in a grey room. Joe was on his way to their undisclosed location with the help of O'Neil's men. After Frank had dialed the number, Nancy had commandeered the phone from him, and given Joe explicit instructions on what he needed to do. This included calling his parents and sending Camilla and her nanny on the first plane headed towards Bayport where it would be much safer. She had managed to do this without explaining exactly what had happened, just that there had been an incident leading everyone to the conclusion that the case hadn't ended with Tom's pulse.

Now Nancy almost looked like the Nancy he had known when they were teens. Her hair was back in a tight ponytail and mostly covered by a plain baseball cap she had purchased soon after the explosion. Her reasoning had been that whoever caused the explosion probably thought that she had died in it and it was best to keep it that way for the time being, but since changing her appearance a lot was out of the question, a hat would have to do. Frank liked this look because he could only see that she had changed a lot when she moved and the hair in the ponytail swished with her. It was easier to be with her, he had found, when he didn't have to face the physical changes she had undergone. It was easier when she looked like the old Nancy.

He smiled a little, thinking back to the explosion in the garage. For a few moments there she had felt exactly like the old Nancy. The way that he had been able to help her by cushioning her fall, and the way that she had lingered longer than necessary. That was the way things used to be.

"What are you smiling about Frank?"

He snapped back to reality as she posed the question and broke the long silence they had been, and he realized that she bore a similar smile to his. "Oh, uh…" _Can't exactly tell the truth here._ "I was just thinking that, uh…"_What happened to your improvisation skills?_ "I was just thinking that your hair still smells like vanilla." _What? That's worse than the truth. Even though it technically has some truth to it. _His train of thought broke off at Nancy's quizzical look.

"When exactly were you smelling my hair?" There was still a smile on her face. If anything, it had gotten bigger; after all, what was more entertaining than a friend's embarrassment.

"At the garage." Frank answered hoping that the burning in his cheeks wasn't as visible as it felt. "When you were on top of me, you're hair was on my face and--."

Nancy shook her head. "I got that part. I meant the still part. You've smelled my hair before?"

_Because our relationship wasn't awkward enough. _"Well, not intentionally...But we ended up lying places together an awful lot…and when you pretend to be married to someone you tend to notice their hair with all the…cuddling."

Nancy thought briefly before speaking again. "I take it from the smile that you like the scent then?"

"Well, I--."

"What's this I hear about our case not being over?" Frank was interrupted by Joe's grand entrance into the small waiting room. He breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought dead meant over."

"Maybe in your line of work, Mr. Hardy." The bald man who had followed him into the room spoke. "But here things fall into a much greyer area." He paused, looking over to Nancy. "Ms. Drew, I need to speak with you. If you'll follow me please, the brother's can entertain themselves until you return."

Nancy stood to follow obediently, freeing up the second folding chair for Joe to take. "You two play nice."

Not moments after she was gone, Joe turned to his brother. "Speaking of playing nice, you two were just talking…without killing each other. What happened? Did she hit you again?"

Some of the blush returned to Frank's cheeks. He didn't need to be reminded of that incident. "No. She just yelled at me some more and it finally knocked some sense into me."

"Good. Finding new ways to explain your behavior without calling you a stubborn jackass was getting hard."

"Well I'm glad that you find everything that happened so amusing."

"Speaking of which, what exactly happened to spawn this sudden frenzy of panic? Camilla wasn't exactly happy to get on that plane with Katie."

"Attempted murder on Nancy's life."

"What else is new?" Joe rolled his eyes. "That's what? At least two in two days. You'd think this secret agent thing was dangerous business or something."

"You could say that." Frank paused for a moment, thinking. "Do you think that it's changed her?"

"I thought that you just got over this."

"No, not like that. I meant…she's not reacting…" He sighed. He couldn't find the right words. "Never mind."

* * *

"Well Ms. Drew, I've never known an agent to introduce two civilians to the Agency in a matter of two days when we're not recruiting."

Nancy looked at O'Neil across his desk. "Technically Joe was your fault sir. And without him knowing about it I would be dead and all of our work would have been for nothing. Frank, I'll take partial responsibility for since I was the one going somewhere with him, but I did not put the bomb in my car and you're the one that told me to bring him."

"But you told him about the Agency before the explosion."

_He always knows. _"And what makes you think that?"

O'Neil's mouth twisted up into a smirk. "He hasn't asked a single question. I'd reprimand you but quite frankly, we don't have the time to deal with it. We have to take down the Phillips family as soon as possible before they get scared and shut down completely." He leaned back into his chair. "They know that Tom is dead, and they know that you're the one that ended up killing him, the newspaper article about the tragic theft attempt at your apartment last night saw to that. What they don't know is what information we got out of him. They're probably nervous and thinking about lying low for a while."

"Which we don't want."

"A temporary solution is never as good as a permanent one, Ms. Drew. We can get them all and shut everything down completely if they're still in operation. If they shut down we'll only be able to stop their minor offences, which are easily replaceable for them."

"And what do we plan on doing sir?"

"Well, we didn't learn anything from Tom, but they don't know that. Our main advantage lies with you however. That car bomb was an act of revenge. You killed the heir of the family. Tom's father is none too happy about this. If his past actions indicate anything, he won't stop at anything until you're dead. Money won't be a concern if it means it will avenge his son. But he'll want to keep money coming in, so he won't shut down, as long as you're alive."

"So we use me as bait." Nancy suggested quickly.

O'Neil just frowned. "I'm afraid that I don't follow your train of thought Ms. Drew."

"Going by his past actions, Phillips gets frustrated if his first attempt on someone's life fails. He's a short-tempered, and arrogant man according to all of our files." Nancy had memorized the files once the case had been assigned to her. "Once he finds out that I'm still alive he'll want to do things himself, because he thinks that he can do it right."

"So you're suggesting we use you to lure him out where we can arrest him. What about the rest of the operations?"

"Sir you know as well as I do that these families are weak. Without a strong leading figure they crumble. Taking care of everything else will be easy once we get him."

"Very well. I'll get our strategists working on a plan right away. You go back to your detective friends and explain what's going on."

* * *

"So this whole thing rides on you being bait…"Frank mulled over the new information Nancy had provided upon her return to the room. He looked to where she sat on the table, letting the brother's have the chairs. "I don't like it."

"I don't think that your opinion matters much to O'Neil Frank." Nancy laughed. "But I'll be sure to let him know."

"No, seriously Nance. If what Joe told me about last night is any indication then you could get into a lot of trouble. I mean if Joe hadn't have shown up then you would have been killed." Frank frowned.

Nancy gave him a look. "This is a bit different. I'll have an entire team of agents backing me up if I can't handle it. And I'll be expecting it this time."

"You should have been expecting it last time."

"Frank…" Joe shot his brother a warning look when he muttered the sentence under his breath. "I'm sure Nancy not only understands what she's doing, but she knows how to handle it. She's trained for this. She's even done it before. Out in Hollywood remember?"

"Yes. And I didn't like it then either."

"Would you like it better if you were in on it?" The same gritty voice belonging to O'Neil interrupted their conversation as he seemed to tend to do. "I've reviewed your backgrounds. They're impressive. Brief stint at the FBI like Ms. Drew…and quite a bit of work for the Network. If it will help rest your fears Mr. Hardy, you and your brother have permission to be temporary agents for me."

Frank didn't even take a moment to think about it. This was his chance. He could see what she was really like now, in this new environment that she head. "I'm in."

Joe on the other hand wasn't so confident. He had already had one adventure with a Phillips family member, and although he had come out relatively unharmed, he wasn't exactly looking forward to another one. "Frank, are you sure?"

"You aren't?"

"Well…yeah." Joe quickly nodded. "This is a big deal. You said it yourself."

"Joe's right." Nancy jumped in quickly, sensing that they were headed towards a dangerous path of a brotherly fight about the topic. "This is dangerous, and as much work as you've done in the detective field, it's still hard. I went through a lot of training before they would even let me observe any of these takedowns."

Her intervention only turned his attitude towards her however. "So you think we can't do this?"

_OK, I guess I chose my words wrong. _Nancy took a deep breath before speaking. She was not going to lose her temper with him again in the same day. "All I meant was you have people that would be very upset if you were injured or killed. Joe has to think about Camilla; you both have to think about each other and your parents."

"And what about you?" Frank challenged. "You don't have anyone to think about?"

"What Ms. Drew here is saying is that this isn't a trivial matter Mr. Hardy." O'Neil intervened. "I'm offering you a chance, but you should definitely weigh the issue before you take it."

"I have. I'm choosing to take it." Frank remained firm in his position. He was going to see exactly what was going on; he was going to be there for her, even though it seemed like once more she didn't want him to be there.

"And you?" O'Neil turned to Joe. "What would you like to do?"

Joe remained silent for a moment, a heavy weight on his shoulders. There were two sides of the fight warring in his mind; the side that longed for the thrill of chases and fights and that was excited every time a new case fell into his lap, and then the side that enjoyed telling stories to his daughter and that missed his late wife. In the end he knew that he didn't have much of a choice. "I'm gonna have to sit this one out."

Nancy briefly put a hand on his, almost wishing she had the same option. She always felt the same way before going in to any mission such as this; nervous and excited. On that particular day the nervousness was outweighing the excitement, but she didn't know why.

O'Neil quickly spoke up. "All right then. You can remain with us until we leave. After that you can wait in our communications room. You'll be able to hear what's going on the entire time." Joe nodded, feeling better already that he would know what was going on while they were gone. "If you'll come with me, we can get you two briefed and give you all the equipment you'll be needing."

Joe heard this, and couldn't resist announcing the first thought that came into his head. If nothing else it would get Frank and Nancy to crack a smile, although he doubted that anybody could make O'Neil laughed if they wanted it. "Please tell me that there's going to be an old guy in a suit handing out ordinary objects and explaining their hidden gadget technology."

* * *

Joe sat obediently in the plain room similarly outfitted to the one he had been in before, aside from a large wall of computers and other bits of technology, with a headset placed over his ears. He was ready to listen in on everything.

He had watched as Frank and Nancy had been outfitted with equipment such as bullet proof vests, and then weapons that could be easily concealed. And while he had been wrong about the old man giving them spring-loaded watches, there had been an agent that provided them with wireless ear buds and even smaller wireless microphones. He had watched them learn of the plan, and now he was listening to them execute it.

Nancy had gone to a mall that one Phillips family member worked during his off-time from the crime business. She had been sure to visit his story, and even more sure to make sure that he caught a good view of her. Then she did a good bit more of loitering in the mall to give them plenty of time to arrive, before heading outside to stand, as though waiting for a ride. Joe had heard all of this.

He also knew that despite Nancy's assurances earlier, there had ended up being a very small amount of agents accompanying his brother and Nancy, a fact that was bothering him slightly, but wasn't enough to disconcert him. Nancy had proven the night before that she knew what she was doing, and he had every reason to believe that the other agents were the same. At the moment, if their slight and brief moments of conversation were any indication, most of these agents, including Frank, were inside the mall, scattered at the various stores by the entrance she was waiting at, ready to run out at a moments notice, while one agent that Joe had recognized from his introduction to the Agency, Shaw, was driving in circles around the mall as though looking for someone that he was supposed to pick up. As far as he knew, all was well.

"**_Anything yet?"_ **One agent asked.

"**_Nope, it's all quiet."_** Nancy sighed. **_"No sign of anyone."_**

And that was when all Joe Hardy could hear was static.

* * *

A quick disclaimer on my knowledge that I included: When I mentioned Nancy going out as bait in Hollywood, I'm not positive that this happened. If it did it was in the Super Mystery "Hollywood Horror" however I couldn't find my copy of the book anywhere to clarify and I might just be imagining the whole event.

That being said...

Thoughts?


	10. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I do not own Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the characters associated with them, or any pop culture references that I may choose to include.

Author's notes: I am very sorry to say that we have encountered the end of Paging Dr. Death…I know, I know, I'm a bit depressed about it as well. It was so much fun to write all of the Nancy/Frank tension. However do not fret! For a solution to this problem has made itself apparent to me and is flying towards us as we speak. Yes, it's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Superman! What? It's not Superman? Oh…right. It's Sequel Girl!

Yes, you read correctly, a sequel is being planned for this. Because one is just not enough.

Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed this story. It made me unbelievably happy and it really motivated me to keep writing. Without you, Sequel Girl wouldn't be appearing.

And now, on to the story.

_Italics are thoughts.

* * *

_

Chapter Nine

Nancy winced as static filled her ears. It wasn't harsh, only loud, but it wasn't exactly what she would call expected. She knew that with the quality of equipment that the Agency used, any interruption wasn't a good thing. "Anybody have a source on the interference?" She received no answer to her question, not that she really expected one. "Rice? Brady? Ainsworth?" Even so, she started to go through the agents on the assignment with her, hoping that maybe one of them wasn't experience the same problems. "Shaw? Frank? O'Neil?" When there was still only static, she knew that the static was an extensive problem, not just hers.

With this piece of information, Nancy came to the conclusion that she needed to abort the plans of catching Phillips that night. It wouldn't be safe without being able to contact any other agents. She quickly formed a plan to jump into Shaw's car the next time that he drove by. He could take her back to headquarters, where she would be safe.

As she waited she brought herself to be more alert and heightened her senses. She stood from her position sitting on the stone bench and her eyes shifted around; getting caught off guard by Phillips would be bad, maybe even deadly.

The sound of loud, slapping, hurried footsteps caused her to turn around quickly. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the source, but quickly sent a look of reprimand to the approaching figure. "Frank." She spoke quietly in a tone that matched her face. "What are you doing out here?"

"I came out as soon as I heard the interference." Frank explained quickly . "I needed to see what was going on, or if there was something wrong with you."

_You and your hero complex, Hardy._ Nancy sighed. "Do you see anyone else running out here Frank?" She asked the question rhetorically, but caught him glancing around to check. "This might just be a technical difficulty. You might have just given it away that this was a setup."

Frank rolled his eyes. He had been doing these official spy games since he was eighteen, but he was glad that he had never joined a specific agency. It was always his experience that the agents he worked with never saw the obvious. Now joining their ranks was Nancy. He had thought that she was better than that; she had been better than that. "Oh, come on."

"What?"

"You honestly believe that these guys know that you work for the Agency, and think that they wouldn't expect for a minute that your going out in public when they want you dead is a setup? Nancy, you've got to be kidding me."

Nancy wasn't ready to give in, despite the strength in Frank's argument. "Whether they expect it or not is not the point. We have to assume that they don't expect it. Besides, the point is we're on assignment, and you only do exactly what you are told when you're on an assignment."

"I was told by O'Neil that I should respond as I saw fit."

"I highly doubt that O'Neil anticipated a situation like--," Nancy was cut off by a loud scream of tires. Both detectives turned to the road to see a plain silver car, windows down, pulling up in front of them, a passenger leaning out and holding a weapon that stared both Frank and Nancy in the eyes.

Nancy stepped slightly in front of Frank and put an arm out as he did the same. They brought each other down to the ground a split second after shots started to be fired. Nancy kept her arm stretched across Frank's back pressing him down as she flattened herself to the pavement. He did the same for her. Some time after the moment when the shots started Nancy heard the static vanish and she hurriedly shouted into her microphone. "Shots fired! Shots fired! Assistance required!" Her message was barely out of her mouth when she heard more footsteps; tilting her head up slightly allowed her to see her fellow agents coming out of the mall, weapons drawn.

Only a few more shots were fired before the tires of the car squealed again as it pulled away. Nancy heard the agents start after it, trying to shoot it out, and she quickly popped up to her knees, Frank's arm falling off of her to the pavement. She was reaching for her own weapon when she realized that he wasn't moving to get up. "Frank? You OK?"

"Just give me a minute." Frank grunted in a strained voice.

Nancy was prepared to do just that, but she noticed the hole in his shirt near the small of his back. A renewed panic coursed through her veins. "Oh my god! Frank, don't move. You were hit!"

"I know. I just need a moment to recover and then we can get going."

"A moment? Frank, you were shot! You can't just move!" Nancy switched into doctor mode without missing a beat, and put her hands down by the bullet hole.

"Nancy--," Frank started to protest just Nancy ripped the shirt open. "I'm wearing a vest."

Nancy's eyes fell on the black Kevlar as he uttered the sentence, and a bright pink flush rose to her cheeks. _Oops.

* * *

_

Joe tapped his foot impatiently, sitting at the now familiar folding table. He had been brought back there to wait nearly the second that the static had come over the headsets; in other words he had been forced to leave the moment things had started to go wrong. And he didn't like it one bit. It only seemed to multiply his worries and fears, and caused him to become a bit jittery and paranoid. He had, after all, been waiting for any bit of news for nearly an hour and a half. His head snapped towards the door the moment it started to open. "What's going on?" He asked quickly.

O'Neil didn't close the door behind himself. "Phillips has been arrested."

At this point, Joe could care less about whether or not Phillips was in custody. He wanted to know about his family. "What about Frank and Nancy? Are they all right?"

"They're on their way here now." O'Neil assured.

His words were like a cue. Nancy entered the room, followed by an agent that Joe recognized from early briefings before the mission, supporting a shirtless Frank who had what appeared to be wearing an ace bandage around his torso. Joe leapt to his feet taking over for the blond agent. "What happened?" He asked quickly, helping his brother into the chair that he had been occupying.

"He was shot in the back." Nancy explained. "The vest protected him, he's going to be fine. He's just going to have a bad bruise there for a while and he needs to take it easy for a bit."

Joe nodded, sympathizing with his brother, remembering his own experiences with getting shot while wearing a bulletproof vest. He didn't envy Frank in the slightest. "And where's his shirt?"

The agent who had brought him to the room grinned a bit. "Well, Lifesaver Barbie over here," he gestured to Nancy whose cheeks flushed again at the teasing, "forgot about the vest and got a little overzealous with the shirt in order to treat your brother. Unfortunately the shirt didn't survive."

"That's enough Ainsworth." O'Neil barked. "You're dismissed."

"Yes sir."

Ainsworth left the room and O'Neil turned to the remaining three, but didn't say anything. After a moment of silence he finally spoke. "Well? Isn't anyone going to explain to Mr. Hardy what happened out there tonight?"

They had been waiting for him, but apparently, he wasn't going to say anything. "Well…" Nancy started. "As it turns out, Shaw was on Phillips' payroll, and he was Tom's source, telling him about me working here. When that didn't exactly work out, he took tonight as an opportunity to redeem himself in Phillips' eyes. He caused the radio interference so Phillips could take me down without anyone stopping him. Thankfully timing has never been one of Shaw's strong suits."

"He started the interference too early, and I ran out there when nothing was happening." Frank took over the storytelling. "Phillips got into Shaw's car at the other side of the mall, drove up to us and started firing. That's when I got shot. The interference timed out and the other agents caught on to what was happening. They came out and managed to shoot out the car, and subdued both Shaw and Phillips."

"Leaving the world safe, for another day." Joe finished in a mock serious tone.

"And on that note I will leave you three. There is a car in the garage waiting to return you to your hotel and your apartment. Feel free to leave when you are ready." O'Neil spoke with a slight air of disdain. "Ms. Drew you will be contacted in a weeks time to discuss your future with us." He turned and left the room.

Nancy turned to the boys. "Let's get out of here. I don't know about the two of you but I definitely need to get some rest."

"I think Frank needs to get a shirt." Joe added.

Nancy sighed. "Right. You two can take care of that one." She and Joe helped the injured man stand.

"I think that you're the one that should be buying it Nancy." Frank spoke going along with all of the teasing that had gone on earlier. "Not only are you the one who ripped the shirt in the first place, but if you hadn't have ripped it, it would still have a bullet hole in it from getting shot by the people who were aiming for you."

"Fine. I'll buy you a shirt the very next time I see one that looks like you."

* * *

Nancy stepped into her apartment that the Agency had graciously cleaned and refurnished, and not a moment later the phone rang. She didn't want to answer it, but she did anyways, knowing it could be something important. "Hello?"

"Where have you been? I've been trying to call you all night."

At Bess' voice, Nancy sighed, kicking off her shoes and then going to sink down into her couch. "I was out with the guys." She informed tiredly. She couldn't reveal everything, but that technically was the truth.

"Ooh, Frank and Joe? How are they doing? Are you and Frank getting along yet? And Joe called here last night in a panic. What was that all about?"

"Nothing. He…realized that I had my wallet had fallen out in his daughter's hospital room and he thought I should have it."

"And he couldn't get your address from that?" Bess challenged the lie quickly.

Nancy's mind raced to come up with an excuse. "Bess, I don't keep my driver's license in my wallet I keep it in my car." She lied, yet again. "Speaking of which can you tell George to call me next time you see her? I could use the Mustang."

"Sure." Bess changed her focus, not wanting to get on the topic of cars, when Nancy was still hanging out with two men. And let's face it. Men are much more interesting than cars. "So are you and Frank getting along yet?"

"Sort of."

"What do you mean sort of? You either are, or you aren't."

"Well we're actually speaking to each other. Why is this important Bess?"

"So you'd say that there's still a chance for the two of you to get together?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"Because if there's not than I know this great guy who's going to be in the Port Winston area next week and he's dying to meet you--."

"Bess, I'm not going to go on another one of your setups."

"Well you have to start somewhere." Bess admonished. "You're never going to get a man if you never go out with any."

Nancy was starting to get rather fed up with Bess' lectures on her lack of love life. "Well for your information I happen to be having dinner with two men tomorrow night, one of whom will be preparing said dinner."

"And you didn't say anything sooner? Start talking. I need details so I can help you prep. How did you manage to get to guys to agree to go on a date with you at the same time. And one of them cooks? This is too good to be true. I always told you that you had the magic when it came to getting guys, but you never listened to me."

"Bess, it's not exactly a date. It's just Frank and Joe."

Bess' voice fell. "You got me all excited for that?" Of course she quickly rebounded. "Oh well. This is the perfect opportunity for you to get Frank. Is he the one that's cooking?"

"No, Joe is. And I will not be, as you put it, getting Frank."

"Joe cooks? Since when?"

"I don't know. He offered, Frank said it was decent. That's all I needed to know."

"See? You need to get with Frank. You're already taking his advice."

* * *

Joe ate his food, watching his brother and Nancy eat in front of him, in the same silence that the two of them had been in all night. So far, it had been a very awkward evening. Conversation sprouted up between, himself and Nancy, or himself and his brother, but every time that the third dining companion got involved in the conversation, things seemed to turn awkward and quickly died. In his opinion, this was all extremely annoying, and was starting to put a damper on the entire evening.. He was ready to get his surprise out that he hoped would lighten the mood significantly, when his cell phone rang. "Sorry guys." He apologized quickly, before pulling the phone out. "Hello…Yeah sure…I'll put the phone on speaker so Frank can say good night too." He pulled the cell phone away from his ear and pressed a button before placing the phone on the table towards the middle. "Camilla wants a bed time story from me." He explained quickly.

"Hi Daddy." The small voice greeted.

"Hi Sweetie." Joe greeted, a smile on his face. "Are you behaving for Grandma and Grandpa?"

"Yes." Camilla answered the question quickly. "We're getting ready for bed. Neither of them know the story that Uncle Frank was telling me though. I want to know what happens."

The smile on Joe's face grew even wider. "I'm sure Uncle Frank would be very happy to tell you what happens." He assured nudging his brother a little with his hand.

Frank sent Joe a glare, but knew that he couldn't exactly refuse his niece. "Of course not."

"What's so good about this?" Nancy leaned towards Joe, speaking in a low whisper.

"Just listen." Joe assured in the same tone. "You'll get a kick out of this."

"So…where in the story was I?" Frank asked, wondering if Camilla would notice if he changed just about everything in the story.

Joe jumped in quickly. "I believe that Sir Fergus and Sir Joshua were about to rescue Princess Natalya from the evil visiting prince."

"Oh…" Frank's cheeks turned a bright red. "Right." He took a deep breath, risking a glance over at Nancy, who had perked up a bit at the familiar name and was now looking on in interest. "Fergus and Joshua stormed the castle where the prince was holding Natalya. They fought with anyone who tried to stop them, and eventually they were able to free Natalya who joined them in the fight to defeat the Prince.

"After the prince had been locked away in the dungeon to await his punishment, Natalya apologized and explained that she had been acting so different because she had started to work for a small, secret group of knights."

"Girls aren't knights Uncle Frank." Camilla cut in quickly.

"They could be if they worked really hard." Frank explained quickly. _OK. So that's not exactly true. But she can't grow up believing antiquated gender stereotypes._ "She had changed her behavior so much because it was important that nobody knew that she was one of the knights, even the people that were closest to her. If anyone knew then she would be put into great danger.

"When he heard her story, Fergus also apologized, realizing that he had been unfair in his judgment of her new life. They accepted each other's apologies and they were friends again. The end."

There was a short silence before Camilla spoke up again. "That's it?"

"Yeah." Frank confirmed.

"But what about Fergus and Natalya? Don't they hook up?"

"Camilla!" Joe jumped in quickly as he watched a new shade of blush rise to his two companions faces. Obviously, Nancy had figured out Frank's not so subtle story. "Where did you hear that?"

"Aunt Vanessa says it all the time." Camilla answered innocently.

"Well you should know by now that repeating Aunt Vanessa isn't always the best thing." He admonished gently. _I know it's inappropriate for her to be asking that but it is funny as hell._

"OK, Daddy." There was a short pause. "But don't Fergus and Natalya--,"

"Get together?" Joe finished the question for his daughter then turned to Frank. "Yeah, Frank. Don't Fergus and Natalya get together?"

"Not this time." Frank by now had his teeth clenched. He did not need this.

"Uncle Frank you need to work on your endings." Camilla informed very matter-of-factly.

"I'll help him out." Joe assured. "Now it's time for you to go to bed. Say goodnight to Uncle Frank."

They said their goodnights and then Joe hung up the phone, putting the three in a silence. Eventually, Nancy broke it. "So…that was a cute story."

"You should have heard it from the very beginning." Joe smirked once more. "You would have loved it."

"I'm sure it's very interesting." She turned to Frank, her embarrassment forgotten, with her eyes twinkling. "Think you could tell it to me Frank?"

Frank didn't say anything, just looked on with a slightly sour expression on his face.

Nancy briefly bit her lip. "Maybe this was a bad topic."

"No. He's just frustrated because his story just got sent back by the editor." Joe glanced down at the empty plates. "Tell you what. I'll get started on doing these dishes and checking on desert, while you two go out to the living room and work on that ending." He winked slightly suggestively.

"I'd really rather not Joe." Frank quickly shot down the idea. "Why don't you let me handle the dishes and you can go relax with Nancy?"

Nancy however, wasn't about to go through another love life lecture with Joe when she had had one not 24 hours before from Bess. "Both of you, go out in the living room. This is my place, I'll do the dishes."

_And endure the teasing from my brother? Not a chance. _"Nancy, no. I am perfectly capable of doing a couple dishes--,"

"I didn't say anything about your capability Frank. I'm meant that you're guests and you should be relaxing."

"Well maybe I don't want to be relaxing." Frank retorted.

Joe instantly knew what the problem was. It had been Frank's problem the entire time. He inwardly grinned a little; he would get to pull out his surprise after all. He stood from the table as Nancy and Frank continued to bicker, going to the counter where he had left some of the shopping bag's he had brought earlier in the day, and pulling out a box. Then he went back to the table, and let out a short whistle that caused the detective and the doctor to look at him. Joe quickly handed the box to Nancy.

Nancy looked down at box in her hands to see it was a box of strawberry blond hair dye.

"Nance, could you do us all a favor and just dye your hair back?"

* * *

The End

Thoughts?

And now…a sneak peak.

**To celebrate the end of her residency, Dr. Nancy Drew's best friend, Bess Marvin, insists on taking Nancy on a tropical cruise to paradise. Nancy agrees, knowing that it's been far too long since she's had a vacation. But Nancy soon finds that Bess has ulterior motives on bringing her on the cruise, such as finding a man that Nancy could spend some time with. As Nancy tries to avoid her friend's web of blind dates, she stumbles across a murder plot, followed quickly by the victim. When Nancy starts to investigate she finds herself caught in a new web of death threats and danger.**

**Meanwhile…**

**Frank and Joe Hardy are undercover on the ship as tourists. They hope to stop a ring of drug smugglers, who recruit people on the ship to use as mules. The Hardys run into Nancy and Bess the first night of the cruise and let them in on the case nearly immediately. As the investigations continue, the four find themselves becoming more and more entangled in a sinister plot far larger than they had imagined they were getting themselves into, that ends with international terrorism. And it doesn't help the situation when they get separated.**

**All this and more in…**

**Cruising to Danger**

The first chapter of Cruising to Danger will be available on a computer near you, no later than Friday. Author's honor.


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